George Serafeim keynote speaker

George Serafeim is a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a pioneering authority on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy and implementation. He is also Senior Partner and Co-Founder of KKS Advisors.

George is an award-winning Professor of Business Administration and Faculty Chair of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project, Harvard Business School. He has taught courses in the Harvard MBA, executive education and doctoral programs, including the “Reimagining Capitalism: Business and Big Problems,” class, which won the Ideas Worth Teaching Award from the Aspen Institute.

He is widely recognized as a world-leading authority on ESG for his pioneering work on building the data around ESG issues and advancing the field. The Financial Times described his research as “a turning point for companies and investment managers in integrating ESG issues into business and investment strategies”. He has written more than 100 articles and business cases, and presented his research at over 100 conferences around the world.

He co-founded KKS Advisors in 2013, a consultancy firm that applies robust academic research to support organizations in developing effective strategies for sustainability. He works closely with boards, executives and managers on ESG initiatives, providing performance measurements and conducting future scenario analyses, and was named “one of the most influential people in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing” by Barron’s.

His research interests are centred on “the 2.0 version of ESG”, which puts greater emphasis on materiality, as well as international business, equity valuation, corporate governance and corporate reporting. His work has been published in numerous academic and practitioner journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Finance and the Harvard Business Review, and has appeared in media outlets including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. George serves on the Technical Review Committee of the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings and has served as a member of the Standards Council of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).

George earned his doctorate in business administration at Harvard Business School, where his dissertation was recognized with the Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research. He holds a master’s degree in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was awarded the Emeritus Professors’ Prize for best academic performance.