STEERING COMMITTEE
Kern Alexander
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Professor Kern Alexander was appointed to the Chair for Law and Finance at the University of Zurich in 2010. Kern is a lawyer and economist with a research focus on the regulation of systemic risk in financial markets. He is the author of academic articles and books, including the co-author of one of the first books critically analysing Basel II and the structured finance markets before the global credit crisis began in 2007. Kern has authored several commissioned reports for the European Parliament, was a Member of the Expert Panel on Financial Services for the European Parliament (2009–14) and was Specialist Advisor to the British Parliament's Joint Select Committee on the Financial Services Act 2012 and has served in other senior advisory roles in the UK Parliament. He holds a PhD and MPhil from the University of Cambridge, an MSc from the University of Oxford and a BA from Cornell University.
Kern is leading a Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership research project sponsored by the Banking Environment Initiative analysing the interaction between the Basel Capital Accord (also known as ‘Basel III’) and environmental sustainability. The project produced a Report in 2014 entitled 'Stability and Sustainability in Banking Reform: Are Environmental Risks Missing in Basel III?'.
Kern is also Founder of the Research Programme on Sustainable Finance and Regulation and Chair of the Research Network for Sustainable Finance.
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Veerle Colaert
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Professor Financial Regulation at KU Leuven University (Belgium), Veerle is also Chair of the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group, which advises the European Securities and Markets Authority, among other things, on the introduction into financial regulation of rules promoting sustainable finance
Member of the Sanctions Commission of the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority.
Veerle is also member of the European Organisation for Banking and Financial Law (Belgian branch), which organises seminars and conferences on financial regulation on a regular basis (including on sustainable finance).
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Guido Ferrarini
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Professor Ferrarini is Emeritus Professor of Company Law at University of Genoa. He holds a J. D. (University of Genoa), an LL.M. (Yale Law School) and a Dr. jur. (h.c., Ghent University). He is a founder and fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), Brussels. He is chairman of Epic SIM (an alternative finance platform) and a board member of Banca Passadore. Professor Ferrarini was a member of the Board of Trustees, International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), London and an independent director at some Italian blue-chip companies (Atlantia, Telecom Italia and TIM). He was an advisor to the Draghi Commission on Financial Markets Law Reform, to Consob (the Italian Securities Commission) and to the Corporate Governance Committee of the Italian Stock Exchange. He held Visiting Professorships at several universities in Europe (Bonn, Frankfurt, Ghent, Hamburg, LSE, UCL, Tilburg and Duisenberg) and the US (Columbia, NYU and Stanford), teaching courses on comparative corporate governance and financial regulation. He is author of many articles in the fields of financial law, corporate law and business law, and editor of several books.
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Paola Schwizer
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Paola Schwizer is Affiliate Professor of Banking and Insurance at SDA Bocconi School of Management. She is Full Professor of Financial Markets and Institutions Parma University, where she teaches Risk management and value creation in banks (in English). She has been appointed as the chair of Nedcommunity, the Italian Association of Non Executive and Independent Directors. Since 2007 she is member of Editorial Board of the Journal of Management and Governance.
She has extensive experience in training on corporate governance, risk management and internal control systems, in Central Banks, private banks and non-banks listed companies. She is member of the Scientific Committee of the PhD School in Economics and Law, University of Parma (Italy) and of the Faculty Committee of the PhD in Economics and in Management, University of Parma (Italy). She is author or co-author of several publications on banking strategies and organization, corporate governance, regulation and competition in the financial system.
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Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi is full professor of Banking Law and Financial Market Law at the Faculty of Banking, Finance and Insurance Sciences of UCSC (Scientific sector: Law and Economics - IUS05).
She is also Vice- Rector of the UCSC (2013-present) and president of the Society of Italian Professors of Law and Economics (ADDE)President of Associazione Docenti di Diritto dell’Economia (ADDE) (2015-present).
Member of the European Commission Expert Group on Regulatory Obstacles to Financial Innovation (ROFIEG).
Antonella is programme Director of the Phd International Summer School in Banking and Capital Markets Law, promoted by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Genoa, KU Leuven University, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, Radboud University Nijmegen.
She is also a member of the Doctoral Programme Committee of the PhD in Commercial Law at UCSC – Milan (2002-present), of the Academic Board of the European Banking Institute (EBI), and of the Scientific Board of Milan Center for Food Law and Policy.
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Beate Sjåfjell
Steering Committee Member & Academic Fellow
Beate Sjåfjell is Professor Dr. Juris at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law, and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Faculty of Economics. Professor Sjåfjell is head of the Faculty’s Research Group Companies, Markets and Sustainability (jus.uio.no/companies), and of several international networks and projects. Her largest project to date is the H2020-funded international research project Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART, 2016-2020, smart.uio.no). Professor Sjåfjell’s publications include the edited volumes Cambridge Handbook of Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability(Cambridge University Press 2019, co-editor: Christopher M. Bruner); Creating Corporate Sustainability (Cambridge University Press, 2018, co-editor: Irene Lynch Fannon); Company Law and Sustainability (Cambridge University Press, 2015, co-editor: Benjamin J. Richardson), The Greening of European Business Under EU Law (Routledge, 2015, co-editor Anja Wiesbrock), as well as the monograph Towards a Sustainable European Company Law (Kluwer Law International, 2009). Professor Sjåfjell has published a number of papers, notably on the integration of sustainability into business and finance. Many of her papers are available at SSRN, where she is among the top 0.43 per cent of authors across disciplines, based on total download of papers.
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