Count Her In: European Think Tank Taps Ertimur as Research Member
The acting dean of Leeds is one of few accounting scholars to be selected to the distinguished European Corporate Governance Institute.
Yonca Ertimur, Leeds' acting dean, was appointed a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Her background in accounting and finance gives her valuable perspective on issues of governance and has made her a respected thought leader in the discipline.
It’s not typical for an accounting scholar to be appointed a research member of the distinguished European Corporate Governance Institute.
Then again, as one of its newest members will be the first to tell you, research interests rarely travel in straight lines.
“I’ve always been interested in a broad array of topics, and getting into corporate governance was one of those things that happened completely by accident,” said Yonca Ertimur, acting dean of the Leeds School of Business and Tandean Rustandy esteemed professor.
While teaching at Stanford, Ertimur reconnected with a fellow alumnus from New York University who was looking at the role of shareholder voting in monitoring public firms. Today, they have multiple papers on the topic that have appeared in some of the most prestigious academic journals, including the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies.
It’s on the strengths of such research accomplishments that Ertimur was last week named a research member of ECGI, a global research network and an international scientific nonprofit association made up of academics, practitioners and institutions. ECGI aims to involve experts in diverse fields like economics, law, finance and management in order to better address governance issues, which typically are cross-disciplinary.
Seeking synergies at Leeds
That’s something that Ertimur enjoys about both governance research and her role at Leeds, “but it has to happen organically—you can’t force those kinds of synergies,” she said.
Ertimur also is an expert in firm disclosures; between those two topics, she has authored more than a dozen papers that have been widely cited. She also holds three editorial appointments at top-tier research journals, giving Leeds heightened visibility and making her an invaluable resource to junior faculty navigating the publication process.
It’s a key reason joined Leeds in 2012.
“I saw Leeds as this younger group with a lot of upside, where I would have a voice,” she said. “I wanted to have an opportunity to shape the school alongside my colleagues.”
In , Ernst Maug, a professor at the University of Mannheim and chair of ECGI’s selection committee, said the organization’s newest members “will contribute to this global dialogue by capturing more of the research being conducted in this field around the world, while maintaining the high standards that are synonymous with ECGI.”