Biography
A PhD was the start of my career’s third phase, after 6 years in industry and 17 in finance. My first employer, after Maths at Oxford, was British Petroleum, where I qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant. I joined Cable & Wireless and became Finance Manager, Strategic Planning for a division and took a Masters in Economics. This was a good foundation for working in the City, at Credit Lyonnais then 14 years at HSBC. I progressed from Analyst to Managing Director and finally Head of Research in two roles. The first took me offshore, to Bangalore, managing 180 research staff working with analysts across the globe. The second brought me back to London as Head of Research for the Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. This combined my interest in business with personal interest in the CIS region, which is also the case in my PhD.
Doctoral Research
Does SOE Management Form affect Transition?
Research Interests
Stephen's research investigates whether states in transition produce divergent State Owned Enterprise management forms, focusing on the cases of Russia and Kazakhstan, which has an SOE owning Sovereign Wealth Fund. It may be found that management differences are on paper rather than in practice, make little difference to SOE performance or that such differences are not key to the pace and path of privatisation. However, if there are genuine differences in management, any effect on the relative performance of state owned and private peer firms could be quantified, potentially modifying the pressure for rapid privatisation. If relative performance were significantly affected, this could add to knowledge of the optimal transition paths, with political economy implications including for shock therapy versus steadier privatisation, oligarch creation versus more equitable ownership and political corruption versus more ethical transition.
Prizes and Awards
Thomson Reuters Extel Survey: Telecommunications Services Research Team: 1st Place 2007-
Thomson Reuters Extel Survey: All Sectors, All Clients, Best Sector Research Team: 1st Place 2008
Thomson Reuters Extel Survey: Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa Research: 6th Place 2011