Jointly organized by the University of Warwick (Hong Kong Office) and Warwick Graduates’ Association (Hong Kong), the Warwick Distinguished Speaker Series present speakers who are established professionals in their own fields.

This speaker series was launched at a dinner reception held at The Hong Kong Club on 26th March 2011, with Professor Mark Taylor, Dean, Warwick Business School as the event speaker.

Professor Mark Taylor has outstanding credentials both in academia and in the business and policy worlds. His research on exchange rates and international financial markets has been published extensively in many leading academic and practitioner journals and he is one of the most highly cited researchers in finance and economics in the world. From 2006 and at the time of the recent financial crisis, on partial leave from his professorship at Warwick, Professor Taylor worked as a Managing Director at BlackRock, the worlds’ largest asset manager, where he led the European arm of a large global macro investment fund.

Despite the event was being held during the Hong Kong Rugby Seven weekend, it was well attended by alumni working in different sectors and not only those from banking and finance, but also a number of our recent graduates.

In his talk “The Financial Crisis: Reflections of an Academic Practitioner”, Professor Taylor shared with the participants his insights on investment management and regulation. The lessons he presented have sparked off some very interesting discussion with the floor.
Professor Taylor was only in Hong Kong for a brief weekend. He and Professor Qing Wang, Associate Dean, Warwick Business School, then continued their trip to Shanghai and Beijing. Warwick Hong Kong Office and Warwick Graduates’ Association Hong Kong are grateful for Professor Taylor’s support. This successful event has laid a good foundation to the rest of the Warwick Distinguished Speaker Series.