Members
The following members constitute the Sustainable Finance Research Group:
Alexander Bassen is a full professor of capital markets and management at the University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Science (Germany). He teaches courses in finance and investment, ESG and capital markets and reporting. Alex is a member of the German Council for Sustainable Development – advisory body of the German Federal Government, the Sustainable Finance Advisory Council of the German Federal Government, and the German Advisory Council on Global Change of the German Federal Government. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Oxford (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment) and a Visiting Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. In addition, he serves as a member on several advisory committees for sustainable finance.
Timo Busch is a full professor at the School of Business, Economics and Social Science of University of Hamburg (Germany) and Senior Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth of University of Zurich (Switzerland). He gives lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and taught at the Duisenberg School of Finance (The Netherlands). Timo Busch had several research stays including John Molson School of Business (Canada), Amsterdam Business School (The Netherlands), Nanyang Business School (Singapore), and University of Berkeley (US). He was United Nations delegate at the Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development. Timo Busch is a member of the Scientific Board of the Association for Environmental Management and Sustainability in Financial Institutions (VfU). He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Organization & Environment, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business Strategy and the Environment.
Since December 2022, Laura Marie Edinger-Schons is Professor of Sustainable Business at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She is also a member of the president’s office of the University of Hamburg as Chief Sustainability Officer and head of the Sustainability Office. Until November 2022, she was Professor of Sustainable Business and Vice President Sustainability and Information Provision at the University of Mannheim. In her research she focuses on the question how organizations can contribute to sustainable development as defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Specific topics which she is interested in are Employee Engagement in Sustainability, Social Entre/Intrapreneurship, Digital Social Innovation, Corporate Democracy, and New Work. Her work has been published in renowned academic journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Business Ethics.
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Lopatta is Chair Professor of Financial Accounting, Auditing and Sustainability at the School of Business, Economics and Social Science of the University of Hamburg and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance of the University of Luxembourg. She has worked as an auditor at a Big 4 audit company and has completed several international research stays including City University Hong Kong and New York University’s Stern School of Business. Her work in sustainable finance and sustainable accounting is published in international high ranked journals. In her research, she investigates empirically the effects of environmental, social, and governance factors on business and society. She also analyzes the impact of financial accounting regulations on business decisions. Finally, she covers corporate governance topics such as board structure and diversity. Kerstin Lopatta serves on the management committee of the Sustainable Finance Research Platform and is a director of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI).
Dr. rer. oec., Dipl.-Ing. oec. Martin Granzow, owner of Nextra Consulting, with which he supports clients from the financial sector in raising the potential of sustainability. Dr. Granzow has many years of experience as a strategy consultant at the interface of sales, marketing and sustainability. Before founding Nextra Consulting, he worked for companies such as Accenture Strategy and Ernst&Young. Dr. Granzow is also a lecturer for the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and editor and author of numerous publications, among others: “Greening Finance – Der Weg in eine nachhaltige Finanzwirtschaft” (2018) and “Sustainable Finance – Grundlagen und Konzepte für die Praxis” (2020). He earned his PhD at the Steinbeis Center for Strategic Management with a focus on sales strategy.
Michael Busack, Dipl.-Kfm., is founder, managing director and sole shareholder of Absolut Research GmbH, founded in 2001 in Hamburg. He is editor of Absolut|report, one of the leading independent specialist publications for institutional investment in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From 1999 to 2010 he was deputy chairman and member of the board of the Federal Association of Alternative Investments e.V. (BAI). Michael Busack was a lecturer at the European Business School (ebs) and is a regular lecturer on institutional investment issues and author in various financial publications and newspapers. He is co-editor of the two-part „Manual on Alternative Investments“, published in the Gabler-Verlag. Michael Busack is a founding member and CEO of the Hamburg Financial Research Center e.V. (HFRC), a merger of leading Hamburg personalities, whose aim is to contribute to the promotion of science and research in the fields of asset management, corporate finance and ship finance.
As a partner at PwC Germany, Dr. Nicole Röttmer heads PwC’s climate work and the Climate Excellence method set. She supports clients worldwide in assessing climate-related financial risks and opportunities across industries and developing climate strategies. In her work, she builds on 20 years of strategic consulting experience at McKinsey & Company and The CO-Firm, among others. She supports leading companies and corporate groups in the development of climate solutions, e.g. within the framework of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), UNEP FI initiative on TCFD for 22 global insurers, the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany. As an expert she supports institutions such as the Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group of the European Commission and UNEP FI, the Science Based Target Initiative for Financial Institutions and the Pilot Lab of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group. She is part of the board of the 2° Investing Initiative Germany and the Sustainable Finance Research Group as well as a Research Affiliate of Oxford University. Her work has been recognized by the Network for Greening the Financial System, the G20 Green Finance Study Group, the TCFD Knowledge Hub, etc.
Yvonne Zwick, theologian and Chairwoman of B.A.U.M. e.V. since 1.1.2021, has held various positions in the office of the German Council for Sustainable Development since 2004. Most recently, she was Deputy Secretary General and Head of the German Sustainability Code Office. She works as an expert in the SME expert working group of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group – EFRAG, which is developing the European sustainability reporting standard for SMEs.
Andreas Hoepner is serving as visiting professor for financial data science at University of Hamburg since January 2017. He is currently a full professor of operational risk, banking & finance at the University College Dublin and head of practical tools for the MISTRA Financial Systems research consortium of Stockholm School of Economics. His research focuses on sustainable investments, analyzed from a financial data science perspective. Dr. Hoepner’s visiting role is aimed at the education of postgraduate research students in financial data science and also seeks to deepen relationships around research grants such as EU Climate KIC, Climpax or MISTRA Financial Systems.