Pati Klusak is a Professor in Accounting and Finance at Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University, an Affiliated Researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Professor at the Bennett Institute for Innovation and Policy Acceleration at the University of Sussex Business School. Her research investigates the behaviour and regulation of credit rating agencies (CRAs) and their effects on financial systems. She is internationally recognised as one of the leading women in sustainable finance and has established a niche in combining environmental science with economics to address important, action-ready challenges in finance. This is evidenced by her research outputs, a global media profile with over 450 media mentions worldwide—including Bloomberg, Forbes, Reuters, the Financial Times, and The New York Times - and direct engagement with governments, central banks (including the Federal Reserve), financial institutions (including investment banks, credit rating agencies, the World Bank, and the IMF), and multilateral development banks (including the AIIB and IDB). In 2024, she won the FT Business Award for Academic Research with Impact in recognition of the real-world influence of her research on climate change, biodiversity, and sovereign debt markets.

Qualifications

• PGCert in Higher Education Practice (University of East Anglia); Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2017)
• PhD in Finance, Bangor University, Bangor Business School (2015)
• MPhil Real Estate Finance, University of Cambridge, Murray Edwards College (2011)
• BA Banking and Finance, Bangor University, Bangor Business School (2010)

Background

Dr Pati Klusak joined EBS in July 2024 as a Professor of Accounting and Finance. Prior to this appointment, she was an Associate Professor at Norwich Business School at University of East Anglia. Since 2019, Pati is an Affiliated Researcher at Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Dr Klusak holds a PhD in Accounting and Finance and a BA in Banking and Finance from Bangor University, and an MPhil in Real Estate Finance at Cambridge University.

• Green finance
• credit rating agencies
• environmentally adjusted credit ratings