Shiva Rajgopal
Shiva Rajgopal was the Vice Dean for Research at the Columbia Business School (CBS) from 2017-19. He also holds the Kester and Byrnes Professorship at CBS. He is a world-renowned expert on financial reporting issues, earnings quality, fraud, executive compensation, corporate culture and corporate governance.
Professor Rajgopal has been internationally recognized for his scholarship on several occasions. He is a three-time recipient of the prestigious American Accounting Association (AAA) Notable Contribution to the Literature Award. He is among the most prolific researchers on financial reporting issues ever. He sits on the editorial boards of several international academic journals. He has been invited to present his research at virtually every major academic institution in the world.
Shiva is passionate about bridging academic theory with policy setting and corporate practice. He has been a member of the AAA’s committee to evaluate standards set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) during the years 2007-2009. He has published op-eds in the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal and Barrons. He is a two-time awardee of the Graham and Dodd Scroll Prize given by the Financial Analysts Journal, which is closely followed on Wall Street, and a three-time winner of the Glen McLaughlin Award for Research in Accounting Ethics. His work is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, and the Economist.
He has wide ranging experience in solving applied business problems. He has worked closely with (i) a global private equity fund on quantifying sovereign debt for large and small economies; (ii) a leading insurance company on measurement of systemic risk; (iii) a financial services firm to develop trading strategies that exploit the market’s difficulty in separating sustainable from transitory earnings; (iv) a hedge fund on measuring corporate culture for a large cross section of public companies; and (v) a cyber-security ratings agency on evaluating a firm’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks.
He advises think tanks, advisory firms and professional and trade associations on (i) measuring and curbing corporate short termism; (ii) how financial statements misrepresent value creation for digital firms; (iii) the impact of reporting frequency on corporate activities; (iv) reporting, communication and management of foreign currency exposure; and (v) on assessing the impact of corporate social responsibility initiatives for companies and investors.
He is an Indian American who resides in New York City with his wife and 13-year old daughter. He enjoys cricket, travel and movies in his spare time.