Mark Abrahamson joined the Centre for Corporate Reputation as a Research Fellow in 2009 and his work culminated in the paper 'Why Don’t U.S. Issuers Demand European Fees for IPOs?', written with Professor Tim Jenkinson and Dr Howard Jones, University of Oxford. The paper examines the ways in which investment bankers extract rent from their reputations in IPO underwriting deals, and the ways that this rent extraction is affected by regulation. Mark completed his DPhil at Oxford’s Saïd Business School in 2009. His thesis, entitled Conflicts of Interest in Investment Banking, identified conflicts arising in IPOs and investment management and used unique datasets to assess the impact of conflicts in these areas. After receiving an undergraduate degree in actuarial science and a Master's in Finance (with distinction) from the University of Cape Town, Mark came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, graduating with an MPhil in Economics in 2005. Mark now works as a consultant in financial services at Oliver Wyman and is based in London. His ongoing research focuses on the role of reputation in investment banking with specific reference to initial public offerings.
Marco Alverà graduated from the London School of Economics in 1997 in Philosophy and Economics. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, where he specializes in developing and teaching case studies on doing business in Africa. He started his career at Goldman Sachs in London in 1997 in M&A and Private Equity. In 2000 he co-founded Netesi, Italy’s first broadband ADSL company. From 2002 to 2005 he joined Enel as Head of Group Corporate Strategy before becoming in 2004 Chief Financial Officer of Wind Telecom, overseeing the sale of Wind to Orascom. He joined eni in 2005 as Assistant to the CEO for special initiatives. In 2006 he was appointed Director of Supply & Portfolio Development at eni’s Gas & Power Division and Chief Executive Officer of Bluestream and Promgas. In 2008 he moved to eni’s Exploration & Production Division where he was appointed Executive Vice President for Russia, North Europe and Americas. In these countries he managed operations and led negotiations with governments and other international oil companies.Since 2010 he has been Chief Executive Officer of eni trading and shipping, which manages all the commodity trading and shipping activities for eni. As of January 16th 2012 he is also Senior Executive Vice President of eni Trading. He has served on the Board of Gazprom Neft and as Chairman of the Board of eni's Russian subsidiaries.
Will Harvey is a university lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School. He received his undergraduate degree from Durham University with an exchange year at UC Berkeley. He received his Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge and a visiting scholarship from Harvard University. Will worked as a Commonwealth and Canadian Government Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. He was also a Research Fellow in the Centre for Corporate Reputation at the Saïd Business School. Will's research focuses on how reputation is built and sustained within professional service firms. In particular, he has analysed how stakeholders judge quality and reputation within management consultancy firms as well as whether such firms have single or multiple reputations across different practice areas in various country contexts. His previous postdoctoral and doctoral work examined the economic impact, mobility and social networks of several hundred highly skilled workers employed in different professions around Boston and Vancouver. In particular, he examined the strategies that different types of firms used to source, recruit and retain highly skilled workers from overseas.
Gary O’Brien is Senior Vice-President, Business Development, Rio Tinto Iron &Titanium. Gary joined Rio Tinto in 1986 as Tax and Evaluation Accountant for Rio Tinto Chemicals. During his career with Rio Tinto he has worked predominantly in the financial and business development fields moving to California, where he worked in Rio Tinto’s US borates operation and later to Montreal to become Senior Vice-President, Business Development, Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium. As President of Quebec Madagascar Minerals (QMM), a greenfield ilmenite mine in the Southern tip of Madagascar, he was in charge of setting up the new operating company and also of the construction project in one of the poorest, most remote and environmentally sensitive parts of the world. Gary is Chairman of the Trustee Board of the Rio Tinto UK Pension Fund.
Aaron Thegeya is currently working with the World Bank's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management group on microfinance, mobile money and governance. He also has prior experience in economic consulting and investment banking.
Aaron's research concerns investment banking and contract theory. He is interested in the impact of reputation on investment bank syndicate structure, and the extent to which reputation can be attributed to an investment bank versus its employees. Aaron holds a D.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar. His D.Phil. research was on optimal contracting under asymmetric information. He holds an M.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University, a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. He also holds a Diploma in Management Information Systems.
Basil Towers is Chairman of Hesleden Partners. He founded Hesleden in 2005 to advise Boards and Executive Leadership teams on how to organise themselves to address and leverage corporate reputation and reputation risk. Hesleden publishes annual syndicated research reports and papers, which identify and share best practice and new thinking on reputation organisation and management. Basil also advises Boards, Chief Executives and Corporate Affairs Directors on how to make the business case for reputation in organisational change; how reputation can enhance strategic debate; and how reputation risk can enhance risk oversight and management. Basil began his career at Burson Marsteller before moving to Shandwick (now Weber Shandwick) to set up the group’s third consulting business. He became Managing Director of Shandwick Communications and a Director of Shandwick UK, the holding company for 14 public relations consultancies. His experience with leading companies and how they manage reputation led him to establish Christow Consultants, a specialist corporate communications and reputation management consultancy, in 1989. At Christow, Basil developed a significant bank of reputation data and knowledge shared with the industry through both research papers and the publication, Corporate Affairs. This data and insight continue to underpin Hesleden’s research and advisory work. Basil is a graduate of Exeter University. Besides being an Associate Fellow of Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and an Honorary Fellow of Glyndwr University, Wrexham.