Riccardo Colacito
Professor of Finance, Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Scholar and Faculty Director for the Center for Excellence in Investment Management
Faculty
Our faculty supports the Center for Excellence in Investment Management’s research, education and outreach activities. Our faculty includes highly renowned research scholars as well as experienced practitioners, representing a robust spectrum of disciplines within the investment management industry, including fundamental analysis in equities and fixed income, capital allocation, alternative investments, quantitative investing and ESG investing.
The Faculty Steering Committee
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Riccardo Colacito
Riccardo (Ric) Colacito’s research interests are in the areas of international finance, financial econometrics, model uncertainty, experimental economics and climate change.
His research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Journal of Finance. He has been featured on several news outlets, including CNN, CBS and The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Colacito is director of the Capital Markets and Investments concentration in the Full-Time MBA Program.
He has received several teaching awards, such as the Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in PhD Teaching and the MBA teaching All Star award.
He serves or has served on the editorial board of several academic journals, including Management Science and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
Dr. Colacito has a secondary appointment with the economics department at UNC and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) with the international finance and macroeconomics group.
He received his PhD in economics from New York University. He grew up in Italy, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Bocconi University, Milan.
Gregory Brown
Distinguished Professor of Finance and Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Scholar
Gregory Brown
Greg Brown is a professor of finance and founder and research director of the Institute for Private Capital.
His recent research centers on alternative investments, including hedge funds and private equity funds. He also is a leading expert on financial risk and the use of derivative contracts as risk management tools.
Dr. Brown’s research has been published in leading academic and practitioner finance journals, including The Journal of Finance, The Journal of Financial Economics, The Review of Financial Studies, The Journal of Derivatives and The Financial Analyst Journal. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Alternative Investments.
He previously served as director of research for Amundi Smith Breeden Associates, a global asset management firm specializing in fixed income investments. He has served as a consultant on financial risk and portfolio management for money management firms, the U.S. government, non-profits and Fortune 500 companies.
Prior to joining UNC Kenan-Flagler, he worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the Division of Research and Statistics. He also worked in artist relations for a subsidiary of Capitol Records in Hollywood.
He received his PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin and his BS with honors in physics and economics from Duke University.
Jennifer Conrad
Dalton McMichael Distinguished Professor of Finance
Jennifer Conrad
Jennifer Conrad conducts research in the investments area. Some of her earlier work concentrated on the causes of predictable patterns in returns and trading strategies related to these patterns, such as contrarian investing.
More recently, she has worked on the relation between credit default swaps and the equity market and the effects of high-frequency trading on the equity market and liquidity providers. She is now working on a project that examines the consequences of impact investing for real outcomes within the firm.
Dr. Conrad teaches derivatives. She has won three teaching awards, research and service awards at UNC Kenan-Flagler. She is the former senior associate dean for academic affairs and area chair of finance.
She has served on the board of directors of the Financial Management Association, the Western Finance Association and the American Finance Association. She has served as the president of the Financial Management Association and the chair of its board of trustees
She received her PhD and MBA from the University of Chicago and her BS from Butler University.
Christian Lundblad
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research and the Richard "Dick" Levin Distinguished Professor of Finance
Christian Lundblad
Christian Lundblad is the Richard Levin Distinguished Professor of Finance and the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He earlier served as the Chair of the Finance Area and the Associate Dean of the Ph.D. Program. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. Finally, he holds a courtesy appointment as a Special-Term Professor at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
His research spans asset pricing, investment management, and international finance, with a specialization in emerging market development. His research has been published in top academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Economics. He served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Finance, and now serves at the Journal of Banking and Finance and Financial Management.
He also served as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., where he advised the Board of Governors on international financial market developments.
He is the recipient of Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in Research and the MBA for Executives and OneMBA Teaching Excellence awards.
He received a PhD in financial economics and a master’s degree in economics from Duke University. He earned his BA in economics and English literature with highest honors from Washington University in St. Louis.
Adam Reed
Area Chair of Finance and Julian Price Distinguished Scholar of Finance
Adam Reed
Adam Reed researches short selling, equity lending, capital markets and mutual funds.
His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies and featured in several books. It has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The New York Times.
Dr. Reed is also a research consultant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He worked as a research assistant for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
He is an award-winning teacher and researcher. Poets & Quants named him one of “The World’s Best 40 B-School Profs Under the Age of 40.” He has received research grants from Q Group and BNP Paribas.
Dr. Reed is a member of the board of academic directors for Quadriserv Inc., and serves on the board of directors for Polyglot and the N.C. State Employees Credit Union Local Advisory Board.
He received his PhD and master’s degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his BA in applied mathematics and economics with honors from the University of California at Berkeley.
Our faculty
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Alexander Arapoglou
Professor of the Practice of Finance
Alexander Arapoglou
Alexander Arapoglou teaches risk management and applied investment management to MBA students at UNC Kenan-Flagler.
He is principal of Aland Corporation, a derivatives and risk consulting firm that he founded in Durham, N.C., in 2002.
He has been a derivatives trader and head of risk management worldwide for a major New York bank. Professor Arapoglou served as treasurer and head of risk management worldwide for Mizuho Capital Markets Corporation. As treasurer, he was responsible for firm investments, funding, liquidity risk management as well as all non-trading foreign exchange and interest rate risk. As head of risk management, he managed the market risk department and implemented a variety of metrics and techniques for the analysis of trading, credit and liquidity risk.
Before joining Mizuho, Professor Arapoglou traded yen derivatives for Chemical Bank and for Chase after the two banks merged. He joined Chemical Bank as global head of risk management in 1989, and managed risk incidents in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.
His career included positions as head of the financial analysis group at Salomon Brothers and head of consumer sector treasury at Chase, where he was on the bank-wide treasury strategy committee. Before he began his financial career, Professor Arapoglou was a management consultant with Accenture, specializing in evaluating and recommending strategic improvements to controls and management information systems for large capital projects worldwide including nuclear power plants refineries and LNG plants.
Professor Arapoglou received his MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler and his bachelor’s degree in engineering from McGill University.
Art Baker
Clinical Associate Professor of Finance
Art Baker
Art Baker teaches courses on private equity, mergers and acquisitions and entrepreneurship through acquisition.
He brings more than 15 years of professional finance experience to UNC Kenan-Flagler. He worked as an investment banker and finance executive in Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies.
Dr. Baker served as chief strategy officer for Smart Start, a portfolio company of a major private equity firm. He led strategy, business development and M&A activities. He was a member of the senior executive committee reporting to the CEO.
He also was manager of strategic initiatives for AAA; manager of corporate development for General Motors; and vice president of investment banking and M&A for RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.
Dr. Baker previously taught at Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University and the Investment Banking Institute.
He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
He received his PhD in economics from Moscow State University, his MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and his BS in business from Oklahoma City University.
Jesse Davis
Associate Professor of Finance
Jesse Davis
Capital structure, information economics and liquidity are the research interests of Jesse Davis. His recent work focuses on the dynamics of an entrepreneur’s decisions regarding the types of securities issued to finance the firm.
Before he began his academic career, he was vice president of quantitative fixed income research at Neuberger Berman in Chicago, and at Princeton Review in different roles.
He was a development project coordinator for Connections for the Homeless and director of resource development for AmericaCorps/Sacramento Habitat for Humanity.
Dr. Davis received his PhD from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, his MBA with high honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his BS in mathematics and BA in chemistry and English literature from Miami University.
Eric Ghysels
Edward Bernstein Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Finance
Eric Ghysels
The main research interests of Eric Ghysels are time series econometrics and finance. His most recent research focuses on MIDAS – Mi(xed) Da(ta) S(ampling) – regression models and related econometric methods, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data and FinTech
He teaches empirical finance and time series PhD courses.
Dr. Ghysels has published in the leading economics, finance and statistics journals and has published several books. He serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals and was co-editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and editor of the Journal of Financial Econometrics.
He is the founding co-president of the Society for Financial Econometrics (SoFiE). He was a resident scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2008-2009 and a Duisenberg Fellow at the European Central Bank in 2011. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Society for Financial Econometrics.
Dr. Ghysels, who speaks French, Dutch and German, has been a visiting professor or scholar at several major U.S., European and Asian universities.
He received his PhD and MA from Northwestern University and his BA from the University of Brussels.
Mustafa Gültekin
Associate Professor of Finance
Mustafa Gültekin
Mustafa N. Gültekin’s work focuses on investments, portfolio theory, asset pricing models, financial modeling, valuation, and risk management.
He teaches applied investment management, financial modeling, valuation and corporate restructuring, and financial markets. Other areas of expertise include international finance, mortgage backed securities, and asset-liability management.
Dr. Gültekin has served as a consultant to major corporations in the United States and abroad. He is a limited partner at the Blackethouse Group LLC, partner and senior advisor to Morning Meeting Inc., a financial modeling and consulting group, and a consultant to the Community First Investment Risk Evaluation (CFIRE) team of Community First Financial Group. He served on the boards of Belltower Advisors, LLC, a hedge fund, Clockworks Therapeutics Inc., a biotech company, and Ardic Tech, Inc., an ICT services and outsourcing company.
Dr. Gültekin is the former president of the European Financial Management Association and the former dean of the College of Administrative Sciences and Economics at Koç University in Istanbul. He also served as associate director of the Management Decision Laboratory at New York University and as a research scientist at Boğazici University in Turkey.
He received his PhD in finance from New York University, his MA in operations management from Boğazici University and a BS in physics from Middle East Technical University.
Jim Jones
Professor of the Practice of Finance
Jim Jones
Jim Jones (MBA ’06), is Partner and Portfolio Manager at William Blair. Since earning his MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler, Jim has worked as an equity analyst with Federated Investors and served nearly 10 years as industrials analyst for William Blair before taking on the role of Director of Research. Since September 2019, he has been portfolio manager for William Blair’s mid-cap growth and small mid-gap growth strategies. As an MBA student, he founded the Alpha Challenge stock pitch competition. He has remained an active alumnus in the Alpha Challenge and also teaches the Fundamental Investing Practicum in the MBA program.
Pramita Saha
Professor of the Practice Finance
Pramita Saha
Pramita Saha, brings over 15 years of experience in capital markets, sales and trading and investment banking to her teaching and her role as executive director of the Center for Excellence in Investment Management. Her teaching focuses on experiential offerings. Before she joined UNC Kenan-Flagler she led loan syndicate and distribution Americas at Standard Chartered Bank and held positions at Goldman Sachs, Citi and BBVA. She received her MBA from Wharton. Learn more about our executive director here.
Gill Segal
Assistant Professor of Finance
Gill Segal
Gill Segal’s research interests include asset pricing, macroeconomics (macro-finance), uncertainty and information.
His current projects focus on understanding the role that fluctuations in volatility play in explaining asset-prices and economic growth. Dr. Segal’s studies examine the macroeconomic and financial implications of different facets of volatility as well as the sources of changes in volatility.
His research has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics.
Dr. Segal teaches courses in investments and financial markets.
He received his PhD and MA in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an outstanding paper award from the Jacobs-Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research. He received his MBA and MBA in computer science from The Open University of Israel.
Andreas Stathopoulus
Assistant Professor of Finance
Andreas Stathopoulus
The research of Andreas Stathopoulos focuses on asset pricing and international finance, with an emphasis on exchange rate determination, international risk sharing and portfolio choice.
His research has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies.
Dr. Stathopoulos teaches courses in investments, financial markets and macroeconomics.
Before joining UNC Kenan-Flagler, he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of Washington.
He received his PhD in finance and economics from Columbia University, his M.Sc. in economics and finance from the University of Warwick and his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Piraeus.
Ranjit Thomas
Professor of the Practice of Finance
Ranjit Thomas
Ranjit Thomas has served as a faculty advisor to the Applied Investment Management (AIM) class since 2019. He is a portfolio manager at Spice Capital Advisors, an investment management firm in Raleigh. Prior to this, he was a Partner at Tracer Capital, a long short equities fund in New York. He has also worked at the private equity unit of Swiss Re and at the Boston Consulting Group in New York and Asia.
He graduated with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is a CFA charterholder and serves on the Board of the CFA Society of North Carolina.