Finance courses

Academic Focus

Acquisitions and corporate strategy, developing an acquisitions strategy and post-acquisition integration.

Recent Clients

Marcus Alexander consults to a number of multinational companies such as Shell, Proeza and Alfa Group, and has worked with more than 50 group CEOs over three decades. He also brings experience from joint ventures in Abu Dhabi and as a board member of an acquisitive Saudi Arabian Group.

Experience

Alexander is a non-executive director of companies in three countries, and on the advisory board of a private equity firm. Prior to joining London Business School, he worked in investment banking, strategy consulting, and advertising. He has had many articles published in leading practitioner journals, including Business Strategy Review, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. He has also co-authored a number of books and contributed to leading news outlets including the BBC, CNN, CNBC, The Times, and the Financial Times.

Academic Focus

Professor Dent is an expert in shareholder value, strategy, value-based management, performance measurement and management accounting. He teaches classes on Project Appraisal and Valuation, Risk and Return: Cost of Capital and Shareholder Value Analysis.

Recent Clients

Professor Dent consults on financial management and shareholder value for many major international organisations including professional services, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, retail and financial services. He has also advised for the UK government.

Experience

A fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Professor Dent has held academic posts as a reader at the London School of Economics and Professor at Manchester Business School. He has also held visiting professorships in France, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Australia. His work appears in leading journals including: Accounting and Organisations in International Encyclopaedia of Business Management (M Warner Ed 2002).

Academic Focus

Professor Chris Hennessy is a three-time winner of the Brattle Prize for outstanding corporate finance research and was named one of four rising stars in financial economics for 2010. He leads the Valuation programme as Academic Director and was formerly Associate Professor and Finance Area Chair at the Walter A Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley.

Recent Clients

He has worked with the US Department of Transportation, State of North Carolina and the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

Experience

Professor Hennessy’s expertise centres on information economics, moral hazard and debt, debt restructuring, tax planning, financing dynamics and credit risk. He connects you to leading financial institutions, as research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London and the European Corporate Governance Institute. He recently received a grant from the European Research Council to study the effect of tax changes on corporate financing decisions. Professor Hennessy’s work has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies. He is editor of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies and associate editor of the Review of Finance, Finance Research Letters, and Management Science.

Academic Focus

Chris Higson’s areas of expertise are in financial statements, financial performance and valuation, taxation, governance and regulation. He serves as an expert witness in these areas. He comments on financial matters on television, radio and in the international press.

Experience

Chris Higson has advised on financial performance in many of the world’s leading industrial and financial companies. He is a member of the oversight board of a UK investment company and has been involved in creating several new businesses, including a consultancy advising governments and financial institutions on the value of their information assets, and a media start-up. He has had several non-executive roles for the UK Government, as a member of the UK’s Industrial Development Advisory Board, the Regional Growth Fund panel, in the UK Green Investment Bank and the British Business Bank.

Academic Focus

Current M&A practices related to industry-specific valuations. He is also an expert in financial reporting considerations for deal-making.

Recent Clients

Dr Alastair Lawrence has worked with and advised several of the world’s largest companies on valuation and financial reporting issues in the technology industry.

Experience

Dr Lawrence has a PhD in Management with a focus on financial reporting analyses and valuation issues. He sits on the editorial board of two top academic journals and has been published in top-tier US-based academic journals. Dr Lawrence’s research covers key financial reporting and valuation issues. He worked in financial reporting, before becoming a tenured faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley.

Academic Focus

Karl researches primarily in the areas of international corporate governance and capital markets, and presents his research at universities and academic conferences worldwide. Karl has published his papers in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Financial Management, the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.

Experience

He has also done executive and degree program teaching at INSEAD, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southern Methodist University, University of Utah, the Duisenberg School of Finance, and several institutions in Mexico. He has earned awards for excellence in teaching at the University of North Carolina, the University of Utah, and the Duisenberg School of Finance. Prior to starting his academic career, Karl worked as a petroleum engineer for Conoco Inc. and in corporate finance and international marketing positions for forest-products producer Boise Cascade Corporation.

Academic Focus

John’s numerous Best Teacher Awards reflect both his 20 years of executive experience in the retailing industry in America and his award-winning research focused on fast-growing entrepreneurial companies. John is the author of two best-selling books, <em>The New Business Road Test</em> and, with Randy Komisar, <em>Getting to Plan B</em>.

Experience

John has consulted with and taught executive education on five continents for organisations such as Novartis, the Young Presidents Organisation, Kenya Airways and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Co-founder of several start-ups, his entrepreneurial work includes helping on the expansion of the retail chain Gap.

Academic Focus

Professor Narayan Naik is recognized as one of the leading experts on hedge fund investing. His teaching includes the following subjects: Strategic Investment Management, Equity Investment Management and Hedge Funds.

Recent Clients

Currently serves on the JPM ABR Index Committee. He has also consulted widely during his career for the World Bank, Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Middle East, and private corporations in the UK, USA and Asia.

Experience

Over the last decade he has authored a significant body of work in hedge funds benchmarking, performance evaluation of long-only managers, tail-risk hedging, life settlements-longevity risk and market microstructure. His work has appeared in the top finance journals, leading practitioner journals and financial press. Professor Naik recently co-authored a research paper with Professor William Fung, which has been used as the foundation for the JP Morgan Alternative Beta Reference (JPM ABR) Index.

Academic Focus

Dr James Ryans’ expertise covers target company valuations, synergy estimations and negotiating M&A terms, as well as current developments and best practices in deal-making.

Recent Clients

Dr Ryans serves as independent director and audit committee chair for Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, an NYSE-listed blank-check acquisition company. He recently served as independent director, and was on a special board committee, of Groundspeed Analytics, an insurance technology firm. In that role, he negotiated and completed the sale of the firm to the private equity firm Oak HC/FT. Dr Ryans has more than 15 years’ experience in business development, investments and advising insurance industry clients.

Experience

Dr Ryans’ academic research has been published in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Accounting and Economics and The Accounting Review. He is currently researching representation and warranty breaches in acquisitions, M&A synergy disclosures and the effect of securities regulators on deal-making. Dr Ryans has a PhD in Business Administration (accounting) from the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from the University of Michigan and a bachelors in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Academic Focus

STEPHEN SCHAEFER is a Professor of Finance at the London Business School. He is also currently the Lead Academic Director of the School’s AQR Asset Management Institute and was previously Deputy Dean (Faculty). Formerly on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, he has also been a visiting professor at, among others, the Universities of British Columbia, California (Berkeley), Cape Town, Chicago and Venice.

Recent Clients

Outside academic life, Stephen Schaefer has consulted widely for financial institutions and is a co-author of two major reports for the Norwegian Ministry of Finance on the management of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund (the “Oil Fund”). At various times he has been an Independent Board Member of the Securities and Futures Authority, a Senior Research Advisor to Moody’s KMV, a Trustee-Director of Smith Breeden Mutual Funds and a member of Moody’s Academic Advisory and Research Committee.

Experience

He has published widely on fixed income markets, risk management, credit risk and financial regulation. His recent research includes a study of corporate default in the US over the past 150 years which was awarded first prize in the 2011 Fama/DFA award for the Best Paper Published in the Journal of Financial Economics in the Areas of Capital Markets and Asset Pricing. In 2016 another recent paper on credit risk was award a Jack Treynor prize by the Q-group.

Academic Focus

Professor Henri Servaes offers participants new approaches to adding shareholder value, number analysis and governance.

Recent Clients

PwC, Deutsche Bank, Anglo American and Chase Manhattan.

Experience

Professor Servaes is Chair of the Finance Faculty, Director of the Institute of Finance and Accounting and an award-winning author published in the world’s top finance journals.

Academic Focus

Professor Talmor is lead lecturer and a world expert in private equity and venture capital. He is Founder of Private Equity at LBS.

Recent Clients

Eli serves on the advisory boards of the African Venture Capital Association, and ETV (a leading European venture lender) and was also on the Board of Governors of London Business School.

Experience

Eli was formerly Professor of Finance at the University of California (UCLA and Irvine), and Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania). He is a serial business angel, and regularly delivers keynote speeches to business executives worldwide. He has advised the UK Prime Minister’s office on private equity matters and co-authored International Private Equity with fellow faculty member Florin Vasvari.

Academic Focus

Dr Tuna teaches classes on Financial Accounting and Corporate Governance to masters and doctoral students, and Financial Statements Analysis for the Executive Education programmes.

Recent Clients

Consults on topics related to corporate governance and executive compensation. Recent clients include Royal Dutch Shell. Also presents research to regulators and asset management companies.

Experience

Dr Tuna’s research interests are in firm valuation, earnings quality, and corporate governance. She is currently an Editor of The Accounting Review. She has published work in a variety of top journals in her field, and won the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award in 2009. She holds a PhD in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from the University of Michigan.

Academic Focus

Florin is a lecturer on the Masterclass in Private Equity. A world leader in the field, his research and teaching expertise is in private equity evaluation and performance measurement; private equity secondaries; accounting disclosures in debt markets; and pricing of accounting information in secondary debt markets.

Recent Clients

Florin regularly presents his research at major business schools including Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Wharton School, MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School, UCLA and INSEAD.

Experience

Florin is associate editor at European Accounting Review, board member of Contemporary Accounting Research, and advisory board member of the Center for Accounting Research and Education. He co-authored International Private Equity with Eli Talmor.

Academic Focus

Martyn Williams specialises in entrepreneurship, managing growth, venture capital and private equity, barriers to small firm growth, new technology-based firms and public/private partnerships.

Recent Clients

Williams is chairman of Options Away and trustee for UNLtd, a charity supporting social entrepreneurs; founding director and chairman of ski and cruise online travel agent Iglu.com, the largest in the UK; founding non-executive director of Sussex Place Ventures, a specialist private investor fund; and of the Story Museum.

Experience

Williams helped negotiate the consortium bid for the Millennium Dome and Greenwich Peninsula and was an investment manager at 3i. He has worked on more than 40 successful fundraising transactions as principal, venture capitalist, banker or advisor.