Alfred Yawson is a Professor in Corporate Finance. Prior to taking up this position he was an Associate Professor in Finance at the University of Adelaide Business School. He also held the position of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at Cass Business School, City University London from January 2013 to January 2014. His primary research interests are corporate finance, particularly corporate restructuring (mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, employee layoffs and strategic alliances, investment banking) and corporate governance. His research has been supported by a competitive grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC). He has published in leading finance journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Empirical Finance and Journal of Business Finance and Accounting. Born and raised in Ghana, Professor Yawson obtained a first class honours degree in Accounting from the University of Ghana, a Master of Science in Finance with distinction and a PhD in Finance from Queen’s University Belfast in the UK. He is a Chartered Accountant with industry experience from reputable financial institutions. Professor Yawson was part of the government team that pioneered the Value Added Tax policy implementation in Ghana.

Professor Peter Swan AM FASSA is currently in the School of Banking and Finance, UNSW Australia Business School. He completed his Honours Economics Degree at ANU, his PhD at Monash and after visiting positions at Chicago and Rochester, joined the Economics faculty at ANU, then to a chair at AGSM @ UNSW Business School and established the Finance department at the University of Sydney prior to returning to UNSW. On the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 9 June 2003 he was appointed as Member of the Order of Australia (AM). Citation: ‘For services to academia as a scholar and researcher and through contributions to public policy in the fields of economics and finance’. UNSW appointed him to the title of Scientia Professor for the period, January 2003 – December 2008, in recognition of international eminence in research. Peter was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1997. According to Mark Blaug’s Who’s Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists, 2nd ed., 3rd ed., 1999, he is in the top ten most highly cited economics and finance academics in Australia. Peter has published in the Journal of Finance, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy (three articles), Econometrica (two), Journal of Business (two), Pacific Basin Finance Journal (two) as well as 40 or so other international journal publications. Internationally, he is best known for his work in industrial organisation on the economics of durable goods and product quality. His current research interests include funds management, market microstructure, corporate governance, executive compensation and asset pricing. Peter has also published many popular articles in Australian newspapers, has appeared on ABC radio and TV and there are over 100 articles in the popular press about his research. Supervisor Homepage

Major research interests: Development economics focusing how local government infrastructure can reduce poverty and conduct and performance of agribusiness markets in poor countries. Also, energy economics focusing on issues facing Australian uranium exporters. Also Editor since 2008 of the IFPRI Discussion Paper Series published by the international Food Policy Research Institute.

Pradeep Ray has been the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Enterprise Networking (EntNet) for 2002-2004 and the founder of IEEE Healthcom that is now the forum of discussions for the IEEE/ITU-D/WHO initiatives on E-Health and M-Health (see www.ehealthcom.org). He is a member of IEEE Communication Society Related Societies Board that looks after the joint activities of IEEE Communication Society with related societies, such as ITU, IEC etc. As the Technical Program Chair (TPC) of this TC for 2000-2002, Pradeep was a part of the team that launched the flagship IEEE/IEC international event called EntNet@SUPERCOMM since 2001. He has been leading a number of collaborative research projects with reputed International Research and Industrial Organisations, such as CGU, SJSU & SNHU USA, LORIA France, National Taiwan University Taiwan, Inje University in South Korea, University of Karlsruhe Germany, Netstar Australia, CAL2CAL USA and Westmead Children’s Hospital, Australia. He has a Ph.D in Computing Sciences from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia , Masters in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a Bachelor of Electronics Engineering from BHU-IT, Banaras, India. He has more than ten years’ experience in technical and management positions in International Information Technology Business Organisations. Pradeep Ray, listed as Marquis Who’s Who of the World since 1999, has published more than hundred and fifty articles in international refereed journals and conferences. He has more than fifteen years’ experience in course development and teaching of courses in Information Technology at postgraduate and under-graduate levels in universities and industry all over the world.