Personal Statement
Prior to joining the University of Liverpool Management School as an Associate Professor of Finance, I held academic appointments at Cardiff Business School, Birmingham Business School, Lancaster University Management School, and Humboldt University of Berlin. I received my PhD in Finance from Lancaster University. I am also a Visiting Researcher at Lancaster University Management School, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the American Finance Association (AFA), the European Finance Association (EFA), and the Financial Management Association (FMA), and hold both the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charter and the CFA Certificate in Climate Risk, Valuation & Investing.

My research is positioned at the intersection of empirical corporate finance, corporate governance, and managerial behaviour. I specialise in understanding how managerial incentives, risk-taking, and governance mechanisms influence firms’ financial and strategic decisions. My work focuses in particular on agency conflicts, executive compensation, corporate risk-taking, and the role of boards and top management teams in shaping financing, investment, and sustainability-related outcomes. In related work, I examine how internal and external governance and incentive mechanisms affect firms’ ESG policies and performance.

My work has been published in leading international journals, including the Review of Finance, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and the Journal of Corporate Finance.

Research Overview
RESEARCH INTERESTS
• EMPIRICAL CORPORATE FINANCE: agency conflicts, managerial risk-taking, corporate bankruptcy and financial distress, corporate investments and capital structure, sustainable corporate finance
• CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: board structure and networks, executive compensation
• BEHAVIORAL CORPORATE FINANCE: the impact of managerial experiences on decision-making

WORKING PAPERS AND WORK-IN-PROGRESS
• “Acquiree Leverage Deviation and Capital Structure Targeting Behavior of Merging Firms”, (with N. F. Carline and B. Wang), Working Paper.
• “Sensation-seeking CEOs and Stock Price Crashes”, (with I. El Kalak and X. Huang), Working Paper.
• “Propagation of ESG-Linked Compensation through Boardroom Connections”, (with I. El Kalak, C. Wang, and Q. Wang), Working Paper.
• “Do Boards Matter for Financing? Board Members’ “Equity Exposure” and Corporate Financing Decisions”, Work-in-Progress.
• “Board-level Sustainability Committees: Does Community Social Capital Matter?” (with Z. Li and B. Wang), Work-in-Progress.
• “The Impact of CEO’s Biological Masculinity and Femininity on Corporate Risk-Taking” (with D. Gilder, R. Altowairqi, and Q. Wang), Work-in-Progress.