Professor Chendi Zhang

Chendi Zhang is a Professor of Finance and founding Director of Exeter Sustainable Finance Centre at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on sustainable investing, corporate finance, and behavioural finance. He has over 20 years of research experience in sustainable finance and investment, with his work receiving over 10,000 citations and featured in media such as the Economist, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. He is currently Chair of the Board of Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment, which comprises 14 leading universities worldwide, and Vice Chair of the research committee for the UK's Chartered Association of Business Schools. He has recently completed a four-year term as Associate Dean for the University of Exeter Business School with responsibility for research and impact, including faculty development activities, after serving as Director of Research for the Department of Finance and Accounting.

He has published in leading journals including Management Science, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and Journal of Banking and Finance, among others. He led the philanthropically-funded Royal Bank of Canada Global Asset Management Sustainable Investment Research Programme, and is a project co-lead for the UKRI-funded Critical Minerals Challenge Centre for Accelerating the Green Economy leading the sustainable finance theme. 

Chendi began his career working in investment banking after completing an undergraduate degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After his PhD from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, he worked as a consultant for the Latin America and Caribbean region of the World Bank in Washington DC. Before joining Exeter, he had been on the faculty of Warwick Business School for over a decade, where he received several teaching awards. He has also held teaching and research appointments at Cambridge, Sheffield, and Tilburg universities, and been an external examiner of Finance postgraduate programmes for Imperial College London and Loughborough University. He has acted as a consultant on sustainable investing and emerging markets finance for the World Bank (Washington DC), Robeco SAM (Zurich), JO Hambro Capital Management, BNY Mellon and Newton Investment Management (London).