Staff

 

Kara Tan Bhala 2013Dr. Kara Tan Bhala

President and Founder

 

 

 

 

Education

PhD (Philosophy) University of Kansas
MA (Philosophy) University of Kansas
MA (Liberal Studies) New York University
MPhil (Management Studies) Oxford University
BS (Systems and Management) City, University of London

Dr. Kara Tan Bhala has a rare combination of professional training and extensive experience in both global finance and moral philosophy. She has over twenty-three years of experience in global finance, much of which was gained through working on Wall Street. She has been a sell-side equity analyst, a sell-side equity sales person, a buy-side equity analyst, and a portfolio manager. From 1992-2001, Dr. Tan Bhala was a Managing Director of Merrill Lynch and the Senior Portfolio Manager of the Merrill Lynch Dragon Fund and Emerging Tigers Fund. At its height, the Merrill Lynch Dragon Fund was the second largest Asian ex-Japan mutual fund in the world, with assets over $1 billion. Before running the Dragon Fund and Emerging Tigers Funds, Dr. Tan Bhala was a portfolio manager with Fiduciary Trust International in New York, where she ran the Far East equity portion of the United Nations Pension Fund. She was a lecturer at the University of Kansas School of Business where she taught Global Finance and Ethics.

Dr. Tan Bhala is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Regulation and Ethics at Queen Mary University of London. She is an Advisor for IntegTree Compliance Consulting. She runs her own international financial markets consulting firm and has been a consultant for hedge and mutual funds based in Kansas City.

Dr. Tan Bhala is the lead author of International Investment Management: Theory, Ethics and Practice published by Routledge in 2016 and a contributor of a chapter, “The Decline and Rise of Financial Ethics” to The Business of Ethics (Asian Institute of Finance, 2016). She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, The Far East Economic Review, and other prominent publications, and has been interviewed on Adam Smith’s Money World. Her published articles are in The Harvard International Review, The Journal of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, among others and has contributed to The Handbook of Portfolio Management.  Dr. Tan Bhala has lived and worked in London, Oxford, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Dr. Tan Bhala is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
, a Member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs
, a Board Member of the Friends of Johnson County Disability Services. In 2017, she was named by Ingram’s Magazine as one of the “50 Kansas You Should Know.” Dr. Tan Bhala was formerly a Trustee at Bishop Seabury Academy, Lawrence, Kansas
, and a Treasurer on the Friends of the Lied Board, Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas.

Cristian Dimitriu

Institute Fellow (cdimitriu@hotmail.com)

BA in Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. PhD in Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada. Cristian was a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy and Humanities and Western Civilization Program, University of Kansas. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He specializes in Global Justice and Analytic Political Philosophy. He is currently doing research on the ethics of international debts, international fair trade, human rights and other topics.

Eric Witmer Eric Witmer

Editor (witmereric@ku.edu)

Eric Witmer lives in Kansas City, Missouri and received his JD from the University of Kansas School of Law. He earned his BA in Film and Video from Pennsylvania State University and also has a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).  Interests: Dog-walking and nature

 

staffNicola Bilotta

Institute Fellow  (nicola.bilotta.uk@gmail.com)

Nicola Bilotta is a junior analyst at The Banker Research Team, Financial Times. He holds a BA in History, a MA in Historical Science, both from the University of Milan, and a MSC in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He collaborates with ISAG (Istituto di Alti Studi di Geopolitica e Scienze Ausiliare) and with GRI (Global Risk Insights). Interests: Water Polo

shaziaShazia K. Afghan

Institute Fellow (shazia_afghan@hotmail.com)

LLM in Banking and Finance Law, Queen Mary University of London, England
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute for Regulation and Ethics, Queen Mary University of London, England
Consultant for the Banking Standards Board, UK

Cynthia Ang

Research Associate (cynthia.yt.ang@gmail.com)

Postgraduate Certificate of Law, University of Hong Kong

MSc, Law and Finance, Oxford University, UK

BA, Law, Monash University, Australia

staffGeneva Decker

Research Associate (genevalyondecker@gmail.com)

BA, Political Science, Yale University, USA

Interests: Sports (varsity soccer team), traveling, cooking, photography

 

staffLena Dominici

Research Associate (l.s.dominici@lse.ac.uk)

BSc Philosophy and Economics, London School of Economics, UK

Interests: Fighting corruption

 

staff

Andrea Gorga

Research Associate (andrea.gorga@hotmail.com)
MSc Economics and Philosophy, London School of Economics. BSc Economics and Management, University of Trento (IT).
Interests: sport, geopolitics

 

StaffStefanie Hines

Research Associate  (mrshines84@gmail.com)

BA Economics, Law, and Policy, Oregon State University, USA

Interests: Jane Austen and Neil Gaiman novels

StaffGeorgette Fernandez Laris

Research Associate (geor.fdzl@gmail.com)

MSc. in Economic History (Research), London School of Economics, UK
MSc. in International Economics and Globalisation, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
BSc. in Business Economics, Miami University, USA
Interests: Philosophy of Economics, contemporary dance, languages.

StaffSherri Lee

Research Associate (sherri113422@gamil.com)

LLB, Law, University of Hong Kong

Interests: Cooking, singing, dancing

 

StaffAndreas Kanaris Miyashiro

Research Associate (A.A.Kanaris-Miyashiro@lse.ac.uk)

BSc Politics and Philosophy, London School of Economics, UK

Interests: ethics and political economy

StaffMakayla Plummer

Research Associate (plummerm@indian.edu)

BA Political Science, Indiana University, USA

Interests: hiking and boating

 

staffSahiti Nandyala

Research Associate (s.r.nandyala@lse.ac.uk)

BSc International Relations, London School of Economics, UK

Interests: Baking and cross-country running

Ryan Sim

Research Associate (ryansim@college.harvard.edu)

AB Government and Economics, Harvard University, USA

Interests: running the SF Bay area  trails, playing guitar

Asami Takeuchi

Research Associate (A.Takeuchi@lse.ac.uk)

MSc, International Political Economy, London School of Economics

BA, Political Science, Waseda University, Japan

Howard Yeung

Research Associate (yeungchhoward@gmail.com)

Bachelor of Social Science and Bachelor of Laws, University of Hong Kong

staffShiyu Zheng

Research Associate (S.Zheng11@lse.ac.uk)

MA, Environmental Economics, London School of Economics, UK
MSc, Comparative Politics, University College London, UK
BA, Philosophy and Economics, University College London, UK
Interests: how formal policy-evaluation tools can incorporate vast uncertainties surrounding climate change