Speakers

Ruth Badru, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, University of Bristol

Dr. Ruth Badru is a Senior Lecturer (also Associate Professor) in Economics at the University of Bristol's School of Economics. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and an MSc. (Hons.) in Business and Financial Economics. Dr. Badru's primary research fields encompass Applied Econometrics & Macroeconomic Modelling and Feminist Political Economy, with secondary interests in Monetary Economics and Institutional Economics. Her current research endeavors are centered around the empirical assessment of gender inequality's influence on meso and macroeconomic outcomes. Over the years, she has imparted knowledge across various economics courses, catering to students at all academic levels. Beyond the academic sphere, Dr. Badru serves as a research and policy consultant for both private and public sector entities in Nigeria and the UK. Notably, she collaborates with organizations such as the UK's Women Budget Group, the African Women Empowerment and Development Guild of Nigeria, and the African Economic Research Consortium.

Title of Speech: The Effect of Gender Wage Differentials And Women’s Bargaining Power on Aggregate Expenditure

Florian Marcel Nuţă, Ph.D

Professor Dr. Habil., Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Danubius University from Galaţi

Florian Marcel Nuţă is a Professor Dr. Habil. at Danubius University from Galaţi, with over 17 years of teaching and research experience. He is affiliated with Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Doctoral School of Social and Human Sciences, for research and doctoral supervision. His scientific research is conducted in the following fields: Environmental Accounting, Climate Change Economics, Energy Economics, Urban Environmental Accounting, Carbon Accounting, Green Taxation, and Public Policy.

He is involved in numerous editorial initiatives as editor-in-chief, editor, member of the international scientific board, and reviewer for scientific journals and international conferences, conducting more than 500 peer-reviews during his academic career.

Dr. Nuţă worked as a reviewer for Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Energy Efficiency, Resources Policy, Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, Economic Research, Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Countries, Cogent Business and Management, and other peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Title of Speech: Green Development for Urban Communities

Javier Cifuentes-Faura, Ph.D.

Researcher, Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Murcia

Javier Cifuentes-Faura works in the Department of Financial Economics and Accounting at the University of Murcia (Spain). His lines of research include those related to public administration and economics, transparency, government, sustainability and green economics. He has published in more than 100 JCR impact journals, such as Public Performance & Management Review, Renewable Energy, Resources Policy, Local Government Studies, Economic Analysis and Policy or Journal of Policy Modeling. He is associate editor of several SSCI journals. He has participated in several international conferences, being invited to some of them as keynote speaker. He has been included in the prestigious Stanford University rankings as one of the 2% most influential researchers in the world in 2022.

Title of Speech: Identifying the Explanatory Variables of Public Debt and Its Impact on the Economy

Chinny Nzekwe-Excel, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Management, Birmingham City University

Dr Chinny is a distinguished academic, consultant/ practitioner, and research expert in the broad areas of Management/ Business Development Initiatives & Repositioning Strategies; International Business; Leadership Concepts; Teaching & Learning Innovations; Work-based Learning; Operations Management Research, and Construction Management. She is a Statistics Expert; Senior Fellow (Advance Higher Education); Certified Management & Business Educator; and a Leadership and Management Professional.

Dr Chinny leads, manages, and delivers Management and Leadership, International Business, Strategy, Professional Project, & Innovation Programmes/ Modules in the UK and overseas (Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, and North America) to different categories of students/ learners from undergraduate to doctoral level. In addition, her diverse educational qualifications and cross-disciplinary professional/ teaching practice enables her to work and collaborate with a range of Corporates/ Businesses & SMEs as well as with colleagues (and learners) from lots of different educational backgrounds (e.g. Audiology, Business, Engineering & IT, Mathematics, Public Health, Psychology, and TESOL).

Being a champion for equality, diversity, and inclusion, Dr Chinny contributes to several academic networks & developments, and internationalisation initiatives. Dr Chinny has strategic involvements with global Higher Education platforms and has published several research outputs in leading academic journals & conference/ scholarly networks. Chinny’s research outputs have continued to gain wide attention/ recognitions including the Highly Commended Emeralds Literati Networks award. She serves as an editor/ reviewer in various peer-reviewed journals.

Title of Speech: Exploring the ‘gem’ of Executive Education as An Alternative to Traditional Degree Pathways

Previous Speakers

Arman Eshraghi, Ph.D.

Professor of Finance and Chair of Finance and Investment, Cardiff Business School

Arman Eshraghi is a Professor of Finance and Chair of Finance and Investment at Cardiff Business School, UK. His academic research spans finance, accounting and psychology with interests including behavioural finance, financial technology and corporate governance. His work is published in some of the leading journals of the field, cited in the media including the Financial Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Bloomberg, and contributed to handbooks published by Cambridge University, Wiley, Springer and Routledge. Professor Eshraghi is an Editor of International Review of Economics and Finance, Senior Editor of Finance Research Letters, Shimomura Fellow of the Development Bank of Japan, Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at UCL, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Director of the Cardiff Fintech Research Group, and an Advisory Board Member of Fintech Wales. He has advised a number of UK fintech and investment firms in recent years.

Canh Thien Dang, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, King's College London

Dr. Dang is a Lecturer in Economics (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Economics, King's Business School, King's College London. He is also an academic supervisor at the Institute of Finance and Technology, University College of London, and a chief examiner for the University of London International Programme (Econometrics). Before joining King's, he lectured and conducted research at the London School of Economics as an LSE Fellow in Economics, and at the University of Warwick as a postdoctoral fellow (in Economics). He completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Nottingham in 2018. He uses both theory and data to answer questions at the intersection of economics and public policies. His research interests include Development Economics, Public Economics, and Applied Econometrics. His current research focuses on the economics of nonprofit organisations, financial data, public good provision (housing, security, preferential tax treatment, and public procurement), and innovation. Recently, he has published at the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Economic Development and Culture Change.

Eghbal Rahimikia, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Eghbal is currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Finance at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, working on the theory and application of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) in Finance. His current project focuses on developing the first comprehensive financial NLP repository, FinText, in collaboration with researchers and industry partners. This repository covers a variety of NLP models (from Word2Vec to GPT) and benchmarks, incorporating different big financial textual datasets.

Manjeevan Singh Seera, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, School of Business, Monash University Malaysia

Dr. Manjeevan Singh Seera is currently serving as the Deputy Head of School (Research) as well as an Associate Professor in Business Analytics at the School of Business at Monash University Malaysia. He graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Computational Intelligence from Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is the author of over 55 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. He has worked in both the academic world and the business world for over 17 years. Before he was promoted to his current role, he held the job of Data Analytics Manager at the Central Bank of Malaysia. In addition, he has vast expertise working in the electronic manufacturing industry, including with companies such as Intel and Flextronics. The primary focus of Dr. Manjeevan's research is on the fundamentals of machine learning and its applications in the fields of finance and engineering. His latest research has focused on the design and implementation of advanced machine learning models for use in Fintech applications, namely the identification and prediction of fraudulent financial transactions.

Davood Askarany, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer, Business School, Accounting and Finance, The University of Auckland

Dr. Askarany is a leading researcher in the diffusion of management accounting innovations in New Zealand. He has successfully received funding for and conducted significant research projects in this area within Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the Middle East. His research and professional interests primarily rest in the diffusion of innovation, management accounting, organisational change, performance measurement, and diffusion theory.

He has published extensively in these areas for both academic and professional outlets. Davood has authored over 100 academic papers and book chapters, including 12 A* and A publications (in the International Journal of Production and Economics, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, International Journal of Accounting, Automation in Construction) and the Encyclopaedia of Information Science and Technology.

Most of his publications have been ranked among the top ten downloads by Social Science Research Network (SSRN). According to SSRN and Research-Gate's websites, some of his papers have been downloaded more than 17,000 times from SSRN, more than 84,000 times from Research Gate's websites, and much more from journals' websites, databases, and E-journals homepages. According to SSRN, he is currently in the top 10% of Authors (out of 353,000+) on SSRN by all-time downloads.

Ather Azim Khan, Ph.D.

Professor and Dean, Faculty of Management and Administrative Sciences, University of Sialkot

Prof. Ather Azim Khan has a Ph.D. in microfinance and is a fellow member of ICMAP. He is working as Dean Faculty of Management and Administrative Sciences at the University of Sialkot, and havs authored books and several research articles. His research areas are microfinance, investments, and finance. He has 29 years of work experience in academia and the corporate world, where he worked as 'Director Finance'; and Chief Accountant in different organizations. He worked at the University of Central Punjab as Dean Faculty of Commerce, Director School of Accounting and Finance, and Associate Dean-UCP Business School, Director of the Volunteers in Service program. He was the editor of Paradigms journal and Co-Chair of ICIBM at UCP. He is the Chief Editor of the research journal of USKT. He is a member of several national boards and committees: Committee to Review the Parameters to Improve the Quality Research Journals, PHEC; NCRC of HEC; Selection Boards; MS program evaluator for HEC; evaluator for relevancy cases; HEC's Joint Consultative Group for Research Journals (Management Sciences); Member of several Selections Boards of Public Sector universities; Budget and Finance Committee of The Punjab Educational Endowment Fund. He was an approved HEC supervisor and supervised five Ph.D. candidates. He is an approved trainer for UNODC, HEC, several banks, MPDD, PEEF, NPO, etcetera.

Muhammad Asif, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Management Sciences, City University of Science and Information Technology

Dr M. Asif (PhD Management Sciences) is currently working as Associate Professor and Head of Management Sciences Department in City University of Science and Information Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan. He is well versed in research having quality publication in well reputed research journals. Along with teaching and administration Dr Asif is also working as managing editor of 2 research journals and member of reviewer's panel in different research journals. His area of interest is Islamic Banking and Finance.

Waseem Ahmad, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Institute of Business Management Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

Waseem Ahmad is working as Associate Professor, at the Institute of Business Management Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Dr. Ahmad earned Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada in 2013. He has more than 15 years of working experience in teaching and research. His research interests areas are policy development, project management, agribusiness strategy development, and retailing. He has completed several research projects funded by national and international funding agencies. He has published many research papers in internationally abstracted journals and presented his work in more than 75 national and international conferences. Dr. Ahmad also served as In-charge of the Business Incubation Center at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. As the head of an incubation center, he has taken various initiatives to improve the capabilities of the students to become a successful entrepreneur.

Muhammad Hashim, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Faisalabad Business School, National Textile University

Dr. Muhammad Hashim is an Associate Professor in Faisalabad Business School of National Textile University. HEC (Higher Education Commission) recognized Hashim for his expertise and contributions in promoting the research culture in Pakistan. Currently, working as a Program Director BS (TMM), Team Leader: Business Analytics and Decision Research Group. He has been Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator in multiple projects granted by HEC (NRPU), NTU and has awarded with excellent paper awards in international conference held in Kanazawa University Japan (2018) and Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey (2022). His mainly interest include Marketing, Operations and supply chain management, sustainability, circular economy and Lean Manufacturing.