Our Faculty's Got Talent: Tenured and Promoted Professors in 2023
In 2023, five professors have been promoted at HEC Paris. Pepa Kraft and Vedran Capkun of the Accounting and Management Control department, and Xitong Li of the Information Systems and Operations Management department have been promoted to professor, while Matthias Efing of the Finance department and Georg Wernicke of the Strategy and Business Policy department have been promoted to associate professor with tenure.
In academia, the rank of professors typically follows a hierarchical structure, with different levels indicating varying levels of experience, expertise, and responsibilities. The common ranks are assistant professor, associate professor with tenure, and professor.
Pepa Kraft, Vedran Capkun and Xitong Li promoted to professors
For Pepa Kraft, 2023 has been a particularly rewarding year, since she was also awarded best researcher 2022 by the HEC Foundation in April for her work on credit rating agencies. She has been teaching Accounting and Management Control at HEC Paris since 2017, and previously taught courses on financial reporting and financial statement analysis at Chicago Booth, Stern and Wharton. Before joining academia, she held posts at Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. Kraft, who is also a Chartered Financial Analyst, has been researching the role of accounting in credit markets, credit rating agencies, off-balance sheet financing and disclosure issues in financial reporting, with far-reaching practical implications for investors, borrowers and regulators.
Find part of her research explained on Knowledge@HEC.
Vedran Capkun has been teaching in the same department of Accounting and Management Control since 2011. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland in 2006, and has published extensively in various academic journals. Capkun is a member of the Association Francophone de Comptabilité (AFC), European Accounting Association (EAA), American Accounting Association (AAA), American Law and Economics Association (ALEA), and Society for Empirical Legal Studies (SELS).
Find part of his research explained on Knowledge@HEC.
Xitong Li has been teaching Information Systems in the department of Information Systems and Operations Management department since 2014. He is also a fellow at the Hi! PARIS Center. His primary research interests are in the economics of information technologies, including social media, crowdfunding, digital marketing, online education, algorithms, and AI. Xitong Li also serves as an Associate Editor on the editorial board of Information Systems Research. He holds a Ph.D. in Management from MIT Sloan School of Management, USA, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.
Find part of his research explained on Knowledge@HEC.
Matthias Efing and Georg Wernicke promoted to associate professors with tenure
Matthias Efing has been teaching finance at HEC Paris since 2016. He holds a PhD in finance from the Swiss Finance Institute and graduated as Diplom kaufmann from the University of Mannheim. Associate Professor Efing conducts research on financial intermediation and regulation and on corporate finance and governance. Most recently, he worked on the compensation of bank employees and on the implementation of financial sanctions by multinational banks. His articles have been published in the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Finance, the Review of Corporate Finance Studies, and the Journal of International Economics.
Georg Wernicke joined HEC Paris in 2016, where he teaches and conducts research on strategy, sustainability, and corporate governance topics. Georg holds a Diplom Kaufmann from Humboldt University in Berlin, a Master of Arts from University College London, and a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Mannheim. Georg’s work has been published in several leading academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Organization Science. He has won several prestigious accolades, including the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation Dissertation Award and the Best Published Paper Award 2022 from the Association of Business Professors in Germany. In 2023, he received the BNP Paribas Pierre Vernimmen Teaching Prize for his innovative pedagogy at HEC Paris.
Find part of his research explained on Knowledge@HEC.
How are professors selected for tenure and promotion?
Interview with Andrea Masini, Dean of Faculty and Research at HEC Paris.
What are faculty tenure and promotion?
The tenure and promotion of professors are a recognition of the excellence of academics by peers, both from their own school and from an internationally recognized community of experts.
How are tenure and promotion evaluated?
The candidates are assessed on the quality and impact of their research and teaching, as well as their contributions to the institution. The individuals must have demonstrated the generation of new knowledge and its effective transfer to students, in a clear way and through an innovative pedagogical method.
What is the evaluation process?
The candidate creates a portfolio that is evaluated by his/her department here at HEC Paris, and then by an international committee through assessment reports. This committee consists of around ten expert professors from other institutions.
Next, another committee, a "Tenure and Promotion Committee," consisting of four professors elected for two years, reviews the candidate's portfolio along with input from their department and the letters from the international committee.
Finally, all the deans of HEC Paris provide their opinions, and the final dossier is submitted to the dean of the school, in this case, Eloïc Peyrache, who makes the ultimate decision.
As you can see, this is a complex procedure designed to ensure the highest objectivity in evaluating candidates' excellence.