Social & Sustainable Finance Chair – Members

Dr. Mohamed AROURI is currently a full Professor of Finance and Sustainability at Université Côte d’Azur and Affiliate Professor at Montpellier Business School (MBS). He has previously served as a Professor of Economics and Finance and Director of the Doctoral School in Economics, Law and Management (ED245) at Université Clermont Auvergne (2011-2017), and as a Researcher and/or Professor in numerous other Universities and Business Schools including University of Orleans (2007-2011), Université Paris-Est (2004), Paris X (2002-2005), ESSEC Business School (2006-2007) and EDHEC Business School (2007-2014). He received his HEC M.Sc. in Finance from IHEC Carthage in 2001, his Ph.D. in Economics from the Université Paris X in 2006, his H.D.R. (Habilitation for Supervising Doctoral Research) in Management Science from the University of Orleans in 2010 and the Agrégation for the full Professorship position in 2011. Arouri’s research interests involve several aspects of financial economics: emerging markets, asset pricing, portfolio management, behavioral finance, and interaction between commodities, asset prices and macroeconomic variables. During recent years, Prof. Arouri has shifted his attention towards the corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the one hand and institutions, economic inclusion and sustainability on the other hand. His research activities have been supported by numerous grants such as ANR, Institut Europlace Finance and Economic Research Forum ERF grants.

Dr. Moez BENNOURI joined in June 2015 Montpellier Business School as an associate professor in Finance. He is director of the MSc programs since December 2019. He holds a PhD in economics from Toulouse University. He has a teaching experience of more than fifteen years in several institutions (HEC Montréal, NEOMA Business School) where he taught courses in both financial markets and corporate finance areas for different degrees (Bachelor, Master, PhD and Executive Education). Using different methodologies, his main research investigates the impact of information asymmetries on the strategic behavior of economic agents and the regulation of financial markets. This question is applied to several topics in Finance and economics, including the microstructure of financial markets, auction theory, initial public offerings, and more recently to corporate governance. His research is published in international journals such as the Review of Finance, Economic Theory, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, Auditing: a Journal of Practice and Theory, Journal of Banking and Finance or The British Journal of Management.

Messidzo CHOKKI is a quantitative ESG researcher in a Hedge Fund in Paris where he works on in-depth factor modeling to integrate ESG criteria into the factor optimization of the portfolio. He is also a doctoral candidate in Sustainable Finance at the MRM Laboratory of the University of Montpellier. His research interests focus on SRI, ESG, portfolio optimization, factor model, machine / deep learning, and big data. To help solve global environmental and social challenges, Messidzo strongly believes that sustainability must be at the forefront of finance. Messidzo CHOKKI holds a Master degree in Market Finance (University of Lorraine) and a Master degree in Data Science (Paris-Saclay University).

After working for eight years in the banking sector as a portfolio manager, corporate banker in a corporate and investment bank, and at the General Inspectorate, Dr. Sébastien DUCHENE joined the academic world as a lecturer in economics and finance at the University of Montpellier to do research on bounded rationality, ethical finance, socially responsible investment, and climate finance within the CEE-M laboratory (University of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, SupAgro) . He also co-founded the first university degree in green finance in France, in partnership with the CIC SUD Ouest, and developed a research collaboration with Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis, on responsible management.

Graduated from Toulouse Business School, Sciences Po Paris and the University of Côte d’Azur, his work has been published in journals such as Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Social Choice and Welfare, The Lancet Public Health, Theory and Decision, Mathematical Social Sciences and the Economic Review.

Dr. Frank Lasch is Full Professor in Entrepreneurship at Montpellier Business School where he chairs the scientific committee. He holds a joint PhD from U. Regensburg, Germany & U. Montpellier, France (2002) and a French habilitation of supervising doctoral research in Management science (2007, “HDR”, U. Montpellier). Board member of the State accredited research center Montpellier Research in Management (U. Montpellier), he also supervises a chair and a program on ‘Innovation, context and entrepreneurial outcomes’ (LabEx Entrepreneurship; U. Montpellier). Since 2012, he is an academic coordinator of the annual ‘Interdisciplinary European Conference on Entrepreneurship Research’. Major topics of research are regional entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurship, micro-firms, inter-firm cooperation, coopetition, types of entrepreneurs, antecedents and outcomes of entrepreneurship, entry modes of entrepreneurship, and copreneurship. His research has been published in a variety of journals including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Industrial and Corporate Change, Small Business Economics, International Small Business Journal, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Management Decision, etc. He currently serves as consulting editor for the International Small Business Journal.

Dr. Ewa MIENDLARZEWSKA is specialized in neuro- and behavioral science of learning, motivation and value-based decision-making. She holds a PhD in neurosciences from University of Geneva (2016) and carried out postdoctoral research in neurofinance and ethical financial decision-making at Geneva Finance Research Institute. She joined MBS in September 2020 and is interested in innovation that applies insights from neurobehavioral sciences to make financial decision-making more sustainable and humane. In her current research projects, she studies motivating individual pro-environmental behaviors and collective intelligence for SDGs. She is also a speculative fiction writer who envisions a future of human activity respectful of (human) nature. She teaches MSc-level courses “Psychology of Finance” at University of Geneva (Geneva Masters in Wealth Management) and “Neuroscience and Finance” at MBS.

Dr. Adrien NGUYEN is professor in economics at the University of Montpellier. He did his thesis in financial mathematics at the University of Paris-Dauphine on the valuation of derivative products on the electricity markets. He is trained as a statistical engineer (ENSAI) and probabilistic (Université Paris-Diderot). He was researcher in Canada (McMaster University), Brazil (IMPA) and France (Ecole des Ponts, Ecole Polytechnique). He works on individual rationality and risk perception on the one hand, and on alternative models for energy transition on the other.

Dr. Pascal NGUYEN is Professor of finance at University of Montpellier. He teaches asset pricing, portfolio management, corporate finance, and private equity. His research examines the implications of corporate governance and ownership structure on firms’ decisions and performance. He is currently investigating the determinants and consequences of board diversity and corporate social responsibility.

Pascal Nguyen was previously Dean for Faculty and Research at Lyon Catholic University, Professor at NEOMA Business School, Senior lecturer and director of the Honours program at UTS, Senior lecturer at UNSW, and Assistant Professor at Audencia Business School. He has also held visiting appointments at Hitotsubashi University, EM Lyon, and University of Paris Est-Créteil.

Dr. Juliette SENN joined Montpellier Business School in September 2020. She holds a PhD in Management Science (Accounting track) from the University of Montpellier and has held a post-doctoral position at the University of Burgos (Spain). She is interested in the role that accounting can play in dealing with the sustainable challenges. Her recent research focuses on issues such as carbon accounting, governance systems and corporate reporting.

Dr. Patrick SENTIS is professor of finance at Montpellier Management (University of Montpellier). He is also affiliated professor of finance at Montpellier Business School. He is currently Director of Doctoral School in Economics and Management of the University of Montpellier. He served as President of French Finance Association (AFFI). He is still Treasury Manager of this association. His academic publications include articles on IPO, lay-off, sales-off, Insurance, Agricultural finance, sustainable finance. He is regular member of CFA Institute.

Dr. Jawad SHAHZAD is Associate Professor of Finance at Montpellier Business School, France (0.8 FTE) and Senior Research Fellow at South Ural State University, Russia. He is topic editor of Journal of Risk and Financial Management and associated editor of Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences. Also, article editor of Sage Open and guest editor of Resources Policy. His research publishes in first-tier journals, such as Journal of Banking and Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, International Journal of Finance and Economics, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, The Energy Journal and Energy Economics.