Latest appointment as Oxford strengthens its expertise in corporate reporting

Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Dr. Robert G. Eccles, the founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the world’s leading academic authority on integrated reporting, has joined Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, as Visiting Professor of Management Practice.

The appointment of Eccles follows the recent recruitment to Oxford of other corporate reporting experts. Earlier this year, Amir Amel-Zadeh joined Oxford Saïd as Associate Professor in Accounting from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and Karthik Ramanna joined the Blavatnik School of Government as Professor of Business and Public Policy from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Eccles is widely recognised for his research on sustainability from both a corporate and investor perspective. He is a steering member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and is Chairman of Arabesque, the world’s first Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Quant fund manager.

Previously, Eccles served on the faculty at Harvard Business School, and is an award-winning author of twelve books, including The Integrated Reporting Movement: Meaning, Momentum, Motives and Materiality (with Michael P. Krzus and Sydney Ribot). In 2015, he was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics.

Richard Barker, Professor of Accounting at Oxford Saïd, said: ‘The ‘traditional’ model of financial reporting has historically served investors and society well, but there is an urgent need for companies to also report on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, as they are key factors for investor decision making. These appointments will strengthen the accounting group here and contribute to our focus in the domain of responsible business.’

On his appointment, Eccles said: ‘I am thrilled to be joining Oxford to support their efforts to become the academic centre of excellence in corporate reporting. I believe we can make substantial contributions in understanding how better corporate reporting can improve performance by both companies and investors, while contributing to a more sustainable society.’

Amir Amel-Zadeh’s research interests include the economic effects of financial accounting and disclosure, mergers and acquisitions, and the accounting and regulatory issues at financial institutions. Currently, he is the lead investigator on a multi-year research project, The Materiality of Non-Financial Information: The Market’s Evolving View of the Relevance of ESG Disclosures, supported by the Newton Centre for Endowment Asset Management, University of Cambridge and funded by a gift from Bank of New York Mellon.

Karthik Ramanna’s scholarship explores the role of business leadership in shaping the basic rules that govern capital-market societies. His book Political Standards studies the political and economic forces that have shaped corporate financial reporting standards over the last 30 years. In his previous faculty role at Harvard Business School, Karthik taught the required MBA course Leadership & Corporate Accountability, where he helped build a curriculum to develop leaders to confront the 21st century’s most challenging problems.