AIF - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Investor
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
Adnan Hassan, Former member of the Board of Directors of the World Bank, Investor, Entrepreneur, Advisor and best-selling Author.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Managing Director at SagaX.Tech and Innovation Excellence Strategist
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Director Inclusive Banking at ABN AMRO Bank
Cyril Demaria is a private markets expert advising investors on asset allocation, and funds and direct investments. He is currently Head of Private Markets Strategy at Julius Baer in Switzerland. Cyril is also the author of multiple books on private equity and asset allocation.
Until 2020, Cyril was a Partner at Wellershoff & Partners, an independent CIO service provider for family offices and financial institutions in Switzerland. His extensive knowledge of the asset class spans 20 years during which he has notably held positions at the CIO of UBS, where he was in charge of private markets research (buy-side). He is the founder and managing partner of venture capital funds and combines academic expertise with his practical experience.
Cyril lectures at top academic institutions including EADA Business School in Barcelona and is an Affiliate Professor at EDHEC Business School in Nice. He has authored best-selling books such as "Introduction to Private Equity" (Wiley, 3rd edition) which has been translated into multiple languages, and "Private Equity Fund Investments" (Palgrave). His book on "Asset Allocation and Private Markets" (Wiley) was published in 2021.
Cyril Demaria received his PhD in Economics and Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Furthermore, he has a Master's degree in European Business Law from Université Paris-V, a Master's degree in Geopolitics from Université Paris-VIII, and is a graduate from HEC Paris.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the ADVISORY BOARD
Frans van Loef (Chair), Founder of Freecapacity and specialized in strategy execution and leadership (team) development.
Job Titles:
- Member of the AIF TEAM
- Course Administrator
Ingemar Dierickx is a senior partner of D&AC - Negotiation Advisors, a company that offers a wide range of negotiation support services. For three decades, he has advised clients in a broad range of industries including banking, insurance and reinsurance, consulting, accounting, legal services, travel, aerospace, the automobile industry, retailing, oil and gas, mining and metals, power generation, the pharmaceutical industry, telecommunications, television and entertainment, software development, commodity and specialty chemicals, as well as the public sector. As a negotiator, he has represented the interests of high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs and corporate clients. As a trainer and coach, he has run hundreds of highly successful negotiation workshops around the world.
He was Professor of Negotiation Analysis at INSEAD for nearly twenty-five years and subsequently joined The Moscow School of Management (Skolkovo) until 2010. Prior to joining INSEAD, he worked at the Division of Research, Harvard Business School and with Professor Schelling (2005 Nobel laureate, Economics) at Harvard University.
His research on Negotiation Analysis and into the microeconomic foundations of Strategy has been widely published in scientific journals such as Management Science, Journal of Business, Strategic Management Journal, International Journal of Industrial Organization, and European Economic Review. He created INSEAD's executive program on Negotiation Dynamics and was its Director for fifteen years. At INSEAD, he received the award for Outstanding Teacher in the Elective Courses four times, as well as a special Lifetime Achievement Award for teaching excellence. With Professor Luis Almeida Costa, he has developed Dealmaker™, a state-of-the-art simulation that tracks repeated negotiations within ongoing business relationships.
Professor Dierickx holds a PhD (Business Economics) from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He also holds law degrees from the Harvard Law School (LL.M.) and the Rijksuniversiteit Gent (Lic.Jur.)
Joost de Haas is an Adjunct-Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD since 2009, where he teaches ‘Managing Corporate Turnarounds' in both the MBA and EMBA programs. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Stellenbosch Business School and the Rotterdam School of Management.
Joost has (co)founded a number of businesses in various industries, has acquired and turned around several companies and has been active in turnaround management since 2001. Until recently, Joost was the CEO of Roto Smeets Group and Executive Director of one of Europe's leading printing and multimedia companies.
After graduating with an MBA from INSEAD in 1986, Joost joined McKinsey & Company. Upon leaving McKinsey he has held several executive and senior management positions in mostly FMCG and telecommunications companies, before turning an entrepreneur in 1994. His core skills include restructuring companies through operational and financial engineering, as well as growing and financing fledgling companies.
Joost holds a Master's degree in Quantitative Business Economics and a Bachelor's degree in Law from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and an MBA from INSEAD.
Job Titles:
- Member of the AIF TEAM
- Program Manager
Job Titles:
- Senior Director
- Adjunct Professor of Finance
Kevin Kaiser is Senior Director of the Alternative Investments Initiative and Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was Professor of Management Practice and on the finance faculty at INSEAD from 1992 until 2017.
Kevin's research has focused on private equity, corporate restructuring and financial distress, more recently oriented around corporate governance and management for value creation. In addition to his research in academic and practitioner journals and newspapers, he has co-authored two books, The Blue Line Imperative, with David Young, and Becoming a Top Manager, with Michael Pich and I.J. Schecter.
Kevin teaches extensively in executive and degree programs. He joined Wharton in 2017 from INSEAD where he was an eight-time recipient of the MBA award for Best Teacher for Electives, a three-time recipient of the EMBA award for Best Teacher for Electives and in 2016 received INSEAD's award for Outstanding Contribution to Executive Education. In 2013, Kevin was a finalist for the Economist Intelligence Unit's world-wide Business Professor of the Year competition. He brings to the classroom his deep knowledge of academic theory together with his real-world experience working in the Corporate Finance and Strategy practice of McKinsey & Co. (1997-1999), and as a principal in bfinance.com, a venture capital-financed marketplace for business finance (1999-2002).
Kevin holds a BA (Honours) in Economics from The University of Western Ontario and a PhD in Finance from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Managing Partner at 360Careers, Executive & Team Coach, Executive Search Consultant and Mediator
Job Titles:
- Accountant
- Associate Professor
- Professor
Matt (Matthew) Wieland is an Associate Professor at Miami University's Farmer School of Business.
Professor Wieland received his PhD and Master of Business from Indiana University after spending three years in public accounting in Cleveland. Prior to joining Miami University, Matt was on the accounting faculty at the University of Georgia and Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis. He also taught financial statement analysis at Yonsei University in South Korea. In addition, he is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and a member of the American Accounting Association.
Matt Wieland is an accountant who is passionate about teaching and researching how to use accounting information in valuation. He has been teaching for over 18 years, the last eight of which have been at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University, Ohio.
His research focuses on the role of accounting information in capital markets. More specifically, this work examines how information maps into security prices and how firm decisions influence reported accounting information. The results of these studies have been published in leading accounting journals such as
Job Titles:
- Professor of Finance at the Aalto University School of Business
Matti Suominen is a Professor of Finance at the Aalto University School of Business in Helsinki. From 1997 until 2006 he was a Professor of Finance at INSEAD. Matti holds a PhD in Financial Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where he has also worked as a Visiting Professor of Finance at Wharton in 2005 and 2022-2023.
Matti has previously worked as an Engagement Manager at the European Corporate Finance Practice of McKinsey & Co. In addition, for several years he was involved with a European hedge fund, focusing on equity valuations to support the portfolio management. He has taught extensively in various MBA and executive programs, receiving numerous best teacher awards including one from INSEAD. He was the Program Director of the INSEAD "Finance for Executives" program from 2002 until spring 2006, and has taught in or directed several company specific programs including those for Bertelsmann, CISCO, Dresdner Bank, Haniel, Noble, Nordea, Mubadala, Schlumberger and Shell. Currently he continues to be an active consultant to both financial and non-financial firms.
Matti's areas of research are information economics in financial markets, asset pricing, and corporate finance. He has published articles in several leading academic journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, International Economic Review and the Journal of Financial Markets (where he received the Best Paper Award).
Job Titles:
- Member of the AIF TEAM
- Business Development
Job Titles:
- Economist and Chief Economist at KBC Asset Management
Peter De Keyzer has extensive experience as an Economist and Chief Economist at KBC Asset Management, ABN AMRO Bank, Degroof Petercam and BNP Paribas Fortis. He is a Guest Lecturer at the University of Antwerp and has held teaching positions at various other universities. Peter has over two decades of experience in giving presentations, moderating debates, and participating in interviews and press conferences. He is a regular contributor to Belgian and international press, writing on topics related to economic growth, Eurozone, demographics, and financial affairs. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of Growth Inc., a Belgian-based advisory firm, and a member of several advisory boards. Peter De Keyzer graduated magna cum laude with a master's degree in economics from the University of Antwerp
Raghu Rau is the Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professor of Finance at the Cambridge Judge Business School. He is also a founder and director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), as well as a member of the Cambridge Corporate Governance Network (CCGN).
Raghu Rau has taught at a number of universities around the world, including the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences PO), Paris-Dauphine, the University of Luxembourg, the Indian School of Business, Purdue University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of California at Berkeley. He was Principal at Barclays Global Investors, then the largest asset manager in the world, in San Francisco from 2008-2009.
His research interests include empirical corporate finance, information economics, behavioral finance, and game theory. His papers focus on why investors behave the way they do in real life. Raghu has investigated for example, behavioral biases that make investors value companies higher when the companies change their names, the effect of early-life natural disasters on CEO risk taking behavior, and why investors chase stale returns in mutual fund reported performance numbers. He has also published a book on corporate finance and several book chapters on behavioral finance.
Professor Rau is a former editor of Financial Management. He is also a past president of the European Finance Association. He serves on numerous academic editorial boards including journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Banking and Finance. His research has frequently been covered by the popular press including the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, among others.
In 2015, Raghu was awarded the Ig Nobel Management Prize for his paper "What doesn't kill you will only make you more risk-loving: Early life disasters and CEO behavior".
Susan has worked in financial services since 1980. She is a Chartered Accountant (Australia and South Africa) and teaches several short courses for The University of Auckland Business School. She worked for a ‘Big Four' Accounting firm for eight years in Cape Town and London, and spent five years with a Wall Street Investment Bank.
Before establishing a financial training consultancy, Susan was Chief Executive of Viaduct Harbour Holdings Limited, Auckland's waterfront development. She regularly presents seminars for organizations throughout Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia that largely target managers from a non-financial background to help them understand the numbers and the financial tools that are available to assist decision making.
Susan is a non-executive Director of a ‘closed-end' investment company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. She also chairs the audit committee of an Australian Public Company.
She has an MBA from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and is the author of several books, including "Simply Finance", now in its sixth edition.
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer of Strategy
Tim Galpin is Senior Lecturer of Strategy and Innovation, Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, best-selling author, Board Member, and an advisor to Boards and senior management.
Tim brings over three decades of practical knowledge and experience, combined with proven approaches and pragmatic tools to his teaching and consulting to organizations in various industries around the world, helping them successfully plan and implement complex efforts including strategy formulation and execution, M&A due diligence and post-deal integration, organizational transformation, and culture change.
Tim Galpin holds a Ph.D. in Organization Development from UCLA and is a former Instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
Job Titles:
- Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies
- Professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of Zurich
Zacharias Sautner is Professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of Zurich (UZH) and a Senior Chair at the Swiss Finance Institute (SFI). Through his research on ESG topics such as climate change or biodiversity, he provides insights on how finance can contribute to a more sustainable future. He enjoys spreading his sustainable finance views in keynote speeches around the world.
His research was published in leading international journals, and he was ranked #23 globally across 12,000 business authors in a ranking based on SSRN research paper downloads (January 2023, calculated over the past 12 months). His research has been cited more than 5,000 times according to Google Scholar and his expertise is referenced in newspapers such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or Financial Times, and in reports by the IMF, ECB, or European Commission as well as in speeches by central bankers. Two of his research papers were ranked #3 and #4 in a Financial Times ranking of "Business School Sustainability Research: What is Read Most?" (July 2023)
Zacharias Sautner acts as Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Banking & Finance, Financial Management, and Journal of Corporate Finance. He is also a Regular Research Visitor at the ECB and advises institutional investors on ESG issues.
Prior to moving to Switzerland, he was Professor of Finance at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, where he for many years headed the finance department.
Zacharias is the proud father of three daughters (born 2017, 2019, 2021), making him intrinsically motivated to work hard for a sustainable future.