London Business School Coller Institute of Private Equity

Professor Eli Talmor

Founder & Chairman of the Coller Institute

BSc (Technion) PhD (North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Professor Eli Talmor is Founder and Chairman of the Coller Institute. He is the creator of and principal lecturer on the private equity elective and Coller Institute MasterClass. With a background in venture capital, Professor Talmor has been responsible for the development of the Institute’s portfolio of prestigious case studies on venture capital and private equity.

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Professor Francesca Cornelli

Academic Director, Coller Institute

BA (Bocconi) PhD (Harvard)

Professor Francesca Cornelli is the current Academic Director for the Coller Institute. Professor of Finance at London Business School, Professor Cornelli has a broad set of research interests within the spheres of corporate finance, industrial and transition economics. As a member of the core research team she worked on the inaugural private equity work commissioned by the World Economic Forum – “Globalization of Alternative Investments”. Professor Cornelli is also a Fellow of Centre for Economic Policy Research, Associate Editor for the Journal of Finance, Associate Editor of Journal of Financial Intermediation and Editorial Board member of Review of Economic Studies. Follow Professor Cornelli's Blog.

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Nicole Hergarten-Tucker

Executive Director

Masters of Science in Financial Engineering (City University of Hong Kong)

Prior to joining the Coller Institute of Private Equity Nicole was at the International Centre for Financial Regulation (ICFR), an international forum and research centre for better global financial regulation. At the ICFR Nicole had been part of the management team which created and established the Centre. Before this she was the manager of the Capital Markets and Investment Banking Practice at McKinsey& Company, after working as a consultant at a major bank in Australia regarding their IFRS and Basel II projects. Nicole taught as a fellow at the Economics and Finance Department of City University of Hong Kong where she obtained a Masters of Science in Financial Engineering degree. The first fifteen years of her career Nicole spent in the banking sector working in innovative derivatives, credit and securitisation divisions on the trading floors of WestLB, CIBC World Markets and Goldman Sachs.

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Ann Iveson

Senior Advisor

BSc (Econ, LSE), MSc Sloan Fellow (London Business School); ACA

Ann was Executive Director at the Coller Institute of Private Equity for the past two years  (2008-2009) playing a key role in defining and  implementing many of the strategic initiatives and projects. She has extensive banking experience within the fields of credit, fixed income sales, derivatives and capital markets. She headed credit at CSFB and European Corporate Origination at BNP Paribas. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PriceWaterhouse Coopers and holds a BSc (Econ) from LSE and is a London Business School Sloan Fellow. Ann is a member of the Advisory Board. Follow Ann's blog. Join the Coller Institute group on Linkedin.

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Associate Professor Florin Vasvari

Associate Professor of Accounting

MA (University of Toronto) PhD (Rotman School of Management, Toronto)

Professor Florin Vasvari’s expertise is the accounting information within debt markets with an emphasis on fair value reporting for financial instruments and associated risk disclosures. Additionally Professor Vasvari co-teaches with Professor Eli Talmor in the private equity elective. He is conducting research in fund performance and secondaries.

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Professor Chris Higson

Associate Professor of Accounting Practice

BA MSc PhD (London)

Chris Higson is a professor in accounting at London Business School, where he was Chair of the Accounting Group and director of the School's Financial Seminar for Senior Managers. He has degrees in philosophy and in economics from University College, London, and has a doctorate in finance from London Business School; he is a chartered accountant and worked for Deloitte and Touche.

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Associate Professor Gary Dushnitsky

Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship

Msc (Tel Aviv University) PhD (New York University)

Professor Dushnitsky’s expertise is corporate venture capital and other innovative forms of entrepreneurial financing. His research explores such issues as the balance of financial and strategic returns, the structure of venturing units, and the compensation of investment professionals.

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Professor Viral Acharya

Professor of Finance, NYU-Stern, 2008-10

BTech (IIT, Bombay) PhD (Stern School of Business, NYU)

Professor Viral Acharya served as Academic Director from 2007 until 2009. He is Professor of Finance, NYU-Stern, 2008-10. In collaboration with McKinsey & Co, Professor Acharya produced research that examines the evidence of value creation in Private Equity owned companies within UK and Europe and includes an attribution analysis of out performance or alpha. He has also co-authored a comparative analysis on the effectiveness of PE and Plc Boards.

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Professor Michael C. Jensen

Senior Academic Adviser

Ph.D., (Economics, Finance, and Accounting), M.B.A., (Finance), A.B., (Economics)

Professor Michael C. Jensen, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard University, has kindly agreed to be Senior Academic Adviser to the Institute.

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