Accounting at London Business School

Experience

Dr. Darren Bernard’s research focuses on the interplay of product market competition and financial reporting decisions. His work examines the effects of product market characteristics on inter-firm information acquisition and the role of financial statement disclosures in facilitating strategic product market and financing behaviours. His research interests extend to several other topics, including the effects of direct stock ownership on dimensions of public company performance and the effects of transparency on the flow of funds in related asset markets.

Experience

Professor Aytekin Ertan’s research focuses on financial intermediation and debt contracting, specifically, the real effects of financial regulation and banks’ reporting practices. His research has been accepted for publication in top journals, including the Accounting Review and Journal of Accounting Research. Aytekin has taught Executive MBA, MBA, Masters in Finance, and doctoral courses in financial reporting. Prior to academia, he worked as a banker in Turkey.

Dr Ertan teaches Financial Accounting in the Executive MBA programmes.

Experience

Dr. Alastair Lawrence is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the London Business School and previously, he was an Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of California at Berkeley.

His research primarily investigates current financial reporting issues and how investors use financial reporting information. Additionally, he studies how investor attention affects market prices.

His work has been published in leading publications such as The Accounting Review, Management Science, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. He teaches financial statement analysis and investing, and enjoys digging through corporate financial disclosures and reporting announcements for investment decisions.

Experience

Andrew was educated at the University of Vienna and Balliol College Oxford. He is Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School having previously been Professor of Accounting and Financial Control. He has also served in a number of administrative roles, including as Dean from 2009 to 2017. His current research is on the role of judgement in management after he became curious as to why judgement, which is generally highly valued, is not developed or used in management. He has an Honorary Doctorate from the London Business School and from three other universities.

Andrew’s career has included work in the public and private sectors, as well as in professional life.

In the public sector he was a member of the Cabinet Office Central Policy Review Staff and spent a 10-year period as one of the Managing Directors of the UK Treasury and Head of the UK Government Accountancy Service. In this period he led the project which changed the basis of government planning, control and reporting from cash to accruals, for which he was created a Knight in 2001. He has also been a Non-executive Chairman of the National Audit Office, Deputy Chairman of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and a Director of the Bank of England. He has won the Sunday Times award for Non-Executive Director of the year in the public/not for profit sector.

In the private sector Andrew worked as a management accountant with Tootal Ltd, ran a textile plant in Germany and was Managing Director of the overseas division of Qualitex Ltd, with subsidiaries in France, the US and Malta. He has been the non-executive Chairman of the market research firm MORI Ltd, the Economists’ Bookshop Group, the California-based electro-technology company Applied Intellectual Capital plc and a non-executive Director of Barclays Bank plc. He is currently a national independent non-executive director of Times Newspapers Holdings Ltd and a non-executive director of the quoted insurance Lloyds underwriter Beazley plc.

In his professional capacity, Andrew has advised the House of Commons Treasury, Employment, Transport and Social Services Select Committees. He is a past President of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (who awarded him their Gold Medal) and was a member of the Financial Reporting Council. He has been a member of a number of official inquiries, including North Sea oil costs, international comparisons of telecoms and posts, and accounting for changing prices. He chaired a government study on professional liability. In the field of corporate governance, he was a member of the “Cadbury Committee” on UK corporate governance, and of the steering committee on oversight and governance of the United Nations.

He lives in London and is married with two children and five grandchildren.

Experience

Professor Scott Richardson is a researcher and portfolio manager in AQR's Global Alternative Premia group, overseeing research in credit and fixed-income markets. He is also involved with the equity research for the firm's Global Stock Selection group.

Prior to AQR, he was a professor at London Business School, where he still teaches MBA and PhD classes. He has held senior positions at BlackRock (Barclays Global Investors), including head of Europe equity research and head of global credit research, where he oversaw research and investment decisions at BGI for both total return and absolute return products across credit and equity markets. He began his career as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies and has published extensively in leading academic and practitioner journals. In 2009 he won the Notable Contribution to Accounting award for his work on earnings quality and accruals. Scott earned a BEc with first-class honours from the University of Sydney and a PhD in business administration from the University of Michigan.

Experience

Dr James Ryans’ research interests focus on investors' use of financial information; on the effects of government monitoring on firms financial disclosures; and on aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including synergies, deal risk management, government intervention, and the impact of short-sellers and activists. Dr Ryans has published studies in prestigious academic journals such as the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, and the Review of Accounting Studies. His work has been cited by the New York Times and the Sunday Times, and has been presented to regulators and researchers at the SEC and PCAOB.

In the private sector, Dr Ryans has worked in investments and business development in the insurance industry, and formerly was a consultant at Deloitte & Touche in Toronto. In his professional capacity, Dr Ryans currently serves as an independent director and chair of the audit committee for Virgin Galactic Holdings, the NYSE-listed human spaceflight company.

Dr Ryans is member of the CFA Society of the UK and currently serves the global CFA Institute in various program support roles.

In addition to his research and professional activities, Dr Ryans is an award winning teacher at London Business School, named Best Teacher for the Masters in Management programme in 2017.

Experience

Professor Lakshmanan Shivakumar is a prolific and influential academic researcher, who has been invited to talk at universities and conferences in over 25 countries. He was formerly the subject area Chair for the Accounting group at London Business School. He has held visiting positions at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Indian School of Business, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, and has been a council member of the American Accounting Association.

His main research interests are in the areas of financial reporting quality, stock-return predictability and macro-accounting. He has published articles in several top-tier accounting and finance journals and is a co-editor of the Review of Accounting Studies and The Accounting Review. His research on financial reporting quality includes an examination of the role of conservatism in financial reporting and earnings management in firms issuing public equity. On stock return predictability, his research has addressed issues relating to the causes of underlying price momentum and post-earnings-announcement drift anomalies. His studies have explained how aggregate corporate profits drive future inflation and how corporate taxes affect macroeconomic growth. 

An award-winning teacher, Shivakumar currently teaches courses on Financial Statement Analysis and on Securities Analysis and Financial Modelling. He also consults for bankers and consulting firms on valuation, financial analysis and investment strategies. His research has been presented to regulators and development agencies across the world, including the African Development Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Experience

Professor Tahoun is as an Associate Professor at London Business School. Tahoun has been a research scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Wharton School, a faculty member at the London School of Economics, a research fellow at the University of Valencia, and a banker at HSBC. His research tackles important questions in society ranging from the quid-pro-quo relations between politicians and the corporate world, the economic consequences of the Egyptian Revolt, and the global development of securities law in response to corporate scandals during the past 200 years. He has also been engaged in comparative international work on executive compensation, looking for the roots of cross-country differences in pay packages. His current research agenda focuses on measuring a firm’s exposure to political risk and to technology shocks and exploring how this exposure affects firms in capital and factor markets. He has published his research in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Accounting Review and the Review of Finance. The New York Times and the FT have covered his work. He is currently an associate editor at the Journal of Accounting Research. Tahoun has been the recipient of five consecutive grants from the prestigious Institute of New Economic Thinking, he has twice received LBS’s faculty research award, he was granted the Referee of the Year award by the Journal of Accounting Research and was made a member of its editorial board. Tahoun was named as one of the Top 40 Professors under 40. Tahoun received his PhD from MBS and completed his doctoral training courses at the Wharton School and Tilburg University.

Experience

Founder of Private Equity at LBS, Professor Eli Talmor is co-author of International Private Equity, broadly considered to be the reference book on the private equity industry. He is frequently invited to deliver keynote speeches to business executives worldwide, testified at the UK Parliament on private equity and advised the UK Prime Minister’s Office.

He served on the London Business School Board of Governors and the advisory board of the African Venture Capital Association. He also practices venture capital and is a serial cornerstone investor with multiple exits.

Before joining the London Business School, he was on the finance faculty at the University of California (UCLA and Irvine), Tel Aviv University and the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania).

Experience

Professor Irem Tuna is a Professor of Accounting at London Business School and teaches classes on Financial Accounting, Corporate Governance, Corporate Communication and Investor Relations to masters and doctoral students, and Financial Statements Analysis for Executive Education. Before joining London Business School, she was on the faculty of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Tuna’s research interests are in firm valuation, earnings quality, corporate governance, and disclosure. She has published work in a variety of journals in her field, including the Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, and Contemporary Accounting Research. She has served as an editor at The Accounting Review, and is on the editorial boards of the Review of Accounting Studies, Contemporary Accounting Review, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, and European Accounting Review.

She holds a PhD in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from the University of Michigan.

Experience

Professor Florin Vasvari teaches Distressed Investing and Financial Restructuring, and Private Equity and Venture Capital. He is an expert on the use of accounting information in debt markets and private equity. His debt market research investigates the pricing and the role of accounting information in secondary debt markets. He covers issues on contracting in the syndicated loan market and public debt market, bond analyst and rating agency disclosures, collateralised loan obligations and private debt funds.

His work on private equity includes work on limited partners' private equity allocations, private equity valuation and performance measurement, private equity secondaries and aspects of risk management.

Professor Vasvari is a member of the editorial board of Adveq Research Series, The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research. 

With Eli Talmor he co-authored International Private Equity. The book has been endorsed by leading figures in the private equity industry. His work has also been published in leading academic journals and he has been invited to present at workshops and conferences around the world.