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CIMA academic research advisors

The CIMA academic research programme draws on the advice and assistance of two virtual advisory groups - the Research Board and Research Advisory Panel - and the CIMA Professor. The Research Board is a virtual advisory group, acting as an academic filter for all CIMA commissioned research projects. Board members assess all academic outputs for academic quality, rigour, relevance and value to developing the science of management accounting. The Research Advisory Panel is a virtual group of practitioners which operates alongside the research board and evaluates research project outputs for business and CIMA relevance. The current CIMA Professor, Wim van der Stede, helps raise CIMA's profile in the academic community and develop world class management accountancy research and intellectual capital.

Research Board Members

Al Bhimani (CPA Canada) is professor of management accounting at the London School of Economics. He has authored a range of scholarly publications and several books in management accounting. Al serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals and is undertaking research on how Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics, Augmented Reality and Blockchain are impacting financial management

Karen Brickman ACMA, CGMA  is an Associate Professor and the Associate Head of  the School of Accounting Finance and Economics at the University of Greenwich. She researches and lectures in the field of Accounting Education, Performance Management and Risk-Taking, along with being a Chartered Management Accountant CIMA. Dr Brickman started her career in Investment Banking and has extensive financial services experience, particularly in the risk and regulation domain. She provides insights and experience from both an academic and corporate perspective.

Chris Chapman is professor of management accounting at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on management control/information systems and performance evaluation, including costing systems in healthcare, big data analytics and accounting for sustainability.

Lino Cinquini is professor of management accounting at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa (Italy). His research interests are in cost and performance management, strategic management accounting and business reporting. Lino has conducted research in these areas in manufacturing and service sectors, including healthcare and published contributions in academic journals. He serves in the editorial boards of the Journal of Accounting & Organisational Change and Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management.

Antonio Davila has a dual appointment as professor of Entrepreneurship and professor of Accounting and Control at IESE Business School. He is the Alcatel Lucent Chair of Technology Management. His current research focuses on management accounting and control systems for innovation and strategy making in both startup and established companies. He holds a doctorate from the Harvard Business School where he was a visiting professor in 2013 and 2014; previously he was a faculty member at Stanford’ GSB.

Angelo Ditillo is an Associate Professor of Management Accounting and Control at Università Bocconi and Professor of SDA Bocconi School of Management. He has published several contributions in academic journals. His current research interests relate to inter-organizational management accounting, management control in knowledge-intensive firms and creative settings, blockchain technology and sustainability control systems.

Anne Farrell  is the PwC Professor and Interim Department Chair in the Accountancy Department of the Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her research focuses on how performance measurement and control systems can be designed to influence and facilitate effective and efficient decision-making, and uses primarily experimental methodologies, including tools from neuroscience. She serves as an editor at Contemporary Accounting Research and Management Accounting Research, as editor of the book series Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting, and as the American Accounting Association Vice President-Finance.

Lin Fitzgerald ACMA, CGMA is professor of management accounting at Loughborough University Business School. Her research interests and publications are in the areas of performance management and cost information for decision-making in service organisations. She has a strong track record in funded research, has published in both practitioner and academic journals and is currently an associate editor for British Accounting Review.

Frank Hartmann is professor of management accounting and management control at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His research interests include the effects of performance evaluation on trust and motivation and the neuroscience of financial decision making and control. He serves as associate editor for ABACUS and Accounting and Business Research.

Lisa Jack FCCA FHEA FIAgM is Professor of Accounting in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at the University of Portsmouth, and also a former President of the British Accounting and Finance Association (2015-2020). Before becoming an academic, she worked as an auditor and then as a teacher. She is one of the few accounting researchers to investigate the agri-food industry, including costs of food crime and food waste. Her areas of interest include management control, performance measurement and social theories applied to accounting research.

Thorsten Knauer is professor of management accounting and scientific director of the Institute for Corporate Management at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. His research focuses on performance measurement and management, planning systems, digitization in management accounting, and planning and control of M&A. Thorsten has published several contributions in both academic and practitioner journals.

Kari Lukka is a professor emeritus of accounting at the Turku School of Economics, Finland. His research interests and publication record cover wide areas of management accounting and control as well as methodological foundations of accounting research. He has served as the editor of the European Accounting Review and is now an Associate Editor of Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management as well as on the editorial boards of several accounting research journals, including AOS, MAR, BAR and ABR. He is also at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management faculty. In 2022, Kari received the Anthony G. Hopwood Award for Academic Leadership from the EAA.

Sanlie Middleberg  FCMA, CGMA is a professor in the School of Accounting Sciences, Management Accountancy programme at the North-West University in South Africa. Her research interests include management accounting and finance with a specific focus on the agricultural industry. Her corporate experience includes 18 months in the investment banking sector in the United Kingdom and five years in the petroleum industry in South Africa. Sanlie is the chair of the Southern Africa CIMA Regional Research Centre.

Jan Mouritsen is a professor at Copenhagen Business School. His interests lie in the role of management control in various organisational and social contexts including intellectual capital and knowledge management, technology management and operations management. Jan is a member of several editorial boards and has been published in journals including Accounting, Organizations and Society and Management Accounting Research.

Hanno Roberts is a professor in management accounting and control at the Norwegian School of Business. He has an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management and a PhD from the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. His main research interests are in the areas of management accounting and control of the knowledge-intensive firm, and qualitative research methods.

Robert Scapens is emeritus professor at the Alliance Manchester Business School and professor of management accounting at the University of Birmingham. He was a co-founder of Management Accounting Research and was its editor-in-chief for 25 years. Now he’s partly retired, he supports younger colleagues in conducting and writing up their research, as well as teaching qualitative research methods to postgraduate students.

Roland Spekle is professor of management accounting & control at Nyenrode Business University. His research interests include the design of effective management control structures and performance measurement systems, both in the private and in the public sector. He currently serves as an editor of the Journal of Management Accounting Research.

Monte Swain is Professor of Management Accounting at Brigham Young University. Professor Swain has been the recipient of a number of teaching awards at both BYU and MSU. He is a licensed CPA and a holder of the CGMA designation. His research interests include behavioural issues in decision support systems, activity-based costing and activity-based management, strategic performance measurements and the Balanced Scorecard and eCommerce finance and strategy.

Steven Toms is professor of accounting and finance at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on the interface between strategic management decision-making and business finance. He has used this to develop models of corporate turnaround, business evolution and strategies for survival in declining industries, business ethics and corporate social responsibility, and health sector PFIs.

Liz Warren is a professor of accounting and business education. She has held several significant leadership roles in Higher Education and is currently the Head of International for the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests in the area of accounting are based on regulation, capital budgeting, performance management and in Business Education, mainly in the areas of improving the self-efficacy of students and digital platforms

Research Advisory Panel Members

Daniel Antoine ACMA, CGMA is an experienced strategy and performance management professional who trained on PwC’s consulting CIMA scheme. Daniel spent several years working on advisory engagements with PwC, IBM and Deloitte in various industries while helping to develop Deloitte’s integrated performance management value proposition. Since obtaining an MBA from HEC Paris he has worked in corporate strategy positions and currently serves as head of controlling with MeVis Medical Solutions AG in Germany.

Nina Barakzai FCMA, CGMA  is Director of Governance & Accountability, Office of the Data Protection Officer, Meta Platforms Ireland.  She is responsible for data governance, advising on policies and standards, reporting to the highest management level within Meta Platforms Ireland  She has previously been Unilever’s Chief Privacy Officer and Group Head of Data Protection and Privacy at Sky.  As both an accountant and a solicitor, her career has evolved from finance operations and strategy, to competition law, regulatory compliance, governance, ethics and privacy. She holds roles on several advisory committees and industry groups, including her positions as member of the Board of Management of the Royal Dublin Society, of CIMA Eastern Region Branch, of the UK Data and Marketing Association’s Responsible Marketing Committee and as former President and Chair of In-House Counsel Worldwide, an association of in-house counsel associations worldwide, taking in many legal jurisdictions. She has served as a board member on the International Federation of Accountants International Ethics Standards Board. Her career started at Thomson McLintock (now KPMG) and she has experience in the media, telecommunications, oil and gas, FMCG and technology industries. She has financial services experience in the pensions advisory and outsourcing consultancy sector working for Towers Perrin (now Willis Towers Watson) and Hewitt Associates (now Aon Hewitt). She led the programme for the Anti Bribery and Corruption, Whistleblowing and Anti Money Laundering programme for the Sky group of companies.

Mark Beale FCMA, CGMA is a finance director with over 20 years' experience managing finance teams around the world, including in Brazil and the Republic of Ireland. He has worked extensively in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors in strategy formulation and implementation, change management, and M&A. Mark holds an MBA from Warwick University’s Business School.

Nawees Dad is a collaborative and results-driven leader with a proven track record of delivering measurable success across a range of industries, including FMCG, Pharma, and Telco. His expertise lies in driving transformation and automation initiatives to improve efficiency and effectiveness, as well as identifying opportunities for growth through commercial finance. He specialises in using business intelligence and data analytics to provide actionable insights and support decision-making. He is skilled at leading diverse teams across various disciplines and locations, and has a strong ability to build business relationships at all levels of seniority. 

Cecelia Fadipe is a qualified accountant of 25yrs+, a CIMA fellow, cost consultant, and director of CFBL Consulting is a specialist consultancy delivering cost assurance and audits on infrastructure projects in the rail, water, technology, defence and renewable energy sectors and sustainable strategy advisory to innovative businesses.
Her experience is in leading cost assurance and audits on major projects such as HS2, Hinkley Point C, Crossrail and delivering protocols and training on cost assurance and ESG finance. She has delivered training to 300+ professionals and businesses. 
She chairs the multi-disciplinary cost assurance steering group, an ESG governance initiative, that comprises global experts from diverse professions and backgrounds driving change and transformation industry wide.

Chris Fuggle FCMA, CGMA, is the Global Head of Sustainability services at Mazars, a leading international audit and advisory firm. Chris has spent several years building up Mazars global capabilities across sustainability assurance, sustainability consulting and sustainable finance. Chris has been a partner at Mazars for the last 11 years, the vast majority of which was spent in Thailand and Singapore before returning to London in 2022.

Stuart McGregor, ACMA, CPFA, CGMA  is a CIMA member, with a Masters Degree in Strategic Business Management and a rounded career in both local and central government and the commercial sector. He is currently Chief Finance Officer at Northampton Borough Council. He has previously held senior Finance positions at a number of local councils – including Havant BC and East Hampshire, Manchester City and Camden Borough Councils- across both the health and social care sector. His early career was spent in the defence sector – holding finance positions in a number of naval, army and airforce agencies. He has experience in both financial and management accounting and a successful track record in developing, leading and implementing change.

Steve Morgan, FCMA, CGMA is a Commercial Deal Desk Director for Microsoft leading a team of specialised Deal Managers for large and strategic customers.
Previously the UK Commercial Enterprise Controller for Microsoft, responsible for Finance partnering and developing the commercial business. Prior to joining Microsoft, I worked in the Oil & Gas Industry for a number years leading an FP&A function in EMEA for Honeywell and specialising in European Oil Refining economics and strategy.

Rebecca Ryan FCMA, CGMA is Head of Finance at Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom. Rebecca has worked in various financial and management accounting roles across industries, including pharmaceuticals, packaging and private banking. She started her accounting career in Sweden but has also worked in Zambia where she undertook voluntary work with a microfinance charity. Rebecca has also worked for a number of large charities including Care Internationaland the British Royal Legion.

Ravi Sonpal ACMA, CGMA is an experienced Management Consultant at Deloitte who leads finance transformation programmes for FTSE100 clients in the UK. Ravi has spent several years working on advisory engagements, specifically leading multi-disciplinary teams to transform performance management and driving change across the finance function. Ravi leads Deloitte’s Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting (PB&F) market proposition and is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Deloitte’s Enterprise TMT Consulting business. Ravi studied the Executive Leadership Programme at Saïd Business School - University of Oxford, and is a CIMA qualified Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA, CGMA).

Marc Stone FCMA CGMA is a c-suite director and specialist in transformation, turnaround and growth with his own consulting practice. Marc has improved fortunes within blue chips such as DHL, XPO, Swissport, National Express, Menzies and HomeServe as well as building small innovation start-ups in clean energy and medicines discovery technologies. Marc is also a member of the University of Birmingham Business School Advisory Board, amongst other NED and advisory roles. His work with the university has improved the impact of academic research, enriched business-academia engagement and advocated sustainable and responsible business practice throughout the business school and Lloyds Centre for Responsible Business.

David Taylor ACMA, CGMA, MBA is executive vice president for strategic marketing and performance management at Trintech. His expertise is in technology, specifically solutions for the record to report process in finance and accounting, and his roles have included finance director, FP&A manager, VP strategic alliances and VP strategy. He has also successfully led M&A, business development, strategic alliances, budgeting, forecasting and planning, quality and process improvement, marketing, product management, global and emerging market strategy.

 

 

CIMA Professor

The role of the CIMA Professor is to raise the profile of the profession and assist CIMA to develop world class management accountancy research and intellectual capital.

Key to the role is building relationships with important stakeholders and presenting at high profile events.

Current CIMA Professor:

Professor Wim Van der Stede is the current CIMA Professor.

Professor Van der Stede is a professor of management accounting at the London School of Economics and Political Science and has been CIMA Professor since 2008.

He obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Ghent, Belgium and has held a variety of professional positions, including Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and Visiting Professor at the ESSEC Paris, France. 

He has published many articles and his awards include the 2009 Article of Merit from the International Federation of Accountants, the AAA Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award in 2007 and the USC Marshall School of Business MBA. PM Golden Apple Teaching Award in 2005. 

He was recently elected to the  the American Accounting Association Board of Directors as Director Focusing on International.

Research and Development Panel

CIMA’s R&D panel is made up of practitioner and academic members who meet several times a year to discuss CIMA’s research agenda.

Members are selected from CIMA’s research and advisory boards and contribute their expertise on CIMA’s R&D programme and advise on the commissioning of high calibre research.

R&D panel members from the research advisory panel

  • Rebecca Ryan (Deputy Chair)
  • Nawees Dad
  • Cecelia Fadipe
  • Chris Fuggle
  • Stuart McGregor
  • Rebecca Ryan

Read member biographies

R&D panel members from the research board

  • Professor Wim van der Stede (Chair)
  • Professor Lisa Jack
  • Professor Thorsten Knauer
  • Professor Sanlie Middleberg
  • Professor Monte Swain
  • Professor Liz Warren

Read member biographies