Blogs

SUSTAINABLE FINANCE – PIONEERING NEW RESEARCH

OVERVIEW Instead of being a means to an end, finance has become an end in itself. Leaders think and behave in exclusive, selfish and unsustainable ways. Experts profit from the science and education, often at the expense of soul, society and nature. Techniques of finance have covered up the greed and selfishness that have devastated […]

TRUST AND TRADITION – the missing link?

Hear my broadcast on the BBC World Service on this vital topic There is huge discussion today on the breakdown of trust in society. For me, it is parallel to the rise of materialism, individualism and secularism. Too many intellectuals consider traditions as regressions, rather than reservoirs of wisdom and experience. In accounting and finance, […]

FIELD TRIPS ENRICH BUSINESS EDUCATION

The City of London (also known as the square mile and world financial hub) is pregnant with financial history. At one time there were 104 churches in this concentrated area. It also saw the invention of many of the core financial institutions which have become normal in finance today – central banking, stock exchange, insurance, […]

URGENTLY NEEDED – NEW INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP IN FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING

The news today is clouded by inequality, fraud and corruption on an unpredented scale. The series of multi-billion dollar scandals at Credit Suisse show how even the most premiere banks have lost their way, and are paying for this in billions. Most commentary focus on the surface of the news, blaming individuals or institutions, but […]

RIPPLES OF COMPASSION – DESHNA’S ‘KAHANI’

Review of Kahani an exhibition by Deshna Shah at Pembroke College, Oxford University The famous writer Chimananda Ngozi Adichie said in her viral TED talk – there is no single story, and it is dangerous to think so. Each of us have a unique story of childhood, upbringing, migration, assimilation and adaptation. However, very rarely […]

BIG 4 GLOBAL ACCOUNTING FIRMS – PROFESSIONAL OR CONFLICTED? YOU DECIDE

In the field of financial regulation and management consulting, no-one can be bigger than the Big4 global accounting firms – Deloitte, PWC, EY and KPMG. Their annual revenues have totalled several hundred billion dollars, and they are immune to booms and busts. However, one of their historic core businesses, auditing, has been receiving severe criticism […]

BBC MORAL MAZE APPEARANCE – A HUGE PUBLIC RESPONSE

One of the BBC’s flagship intellectual programmes, the Moral Maze on Radio 4, invited me to provide expert comments on the morality of Sanctions in the Ukraine crisis, and in particular, the role of professional enablers like lawyers, bankers and accountants, in money laundering and plutocracy. This takes me back to my PhD days at […]

ETHICAL FINANCE – A MEETING ACROSS OCEANS & TRADITIONS

LORD ANDREW PHILLIPS AND PROFESSOR ATUL SHAH When community and faith are stripped from finance, it becomes soul-less – limits to wealth disappear, and the pain and suffering inflicted on others by business behaviour, are not ‘felt’ or experienced by finance leaders. This was the theme of our meeting at Lord Phillips residence in Sudbury, […]

FAITH AND FINANCE – A REUNION

Finance, Inflation and Money have gone out of control. In spite of inequality, the press regularly celebrate the rich including young technical wizards who become billionaires overnight, as if they suddenly ‘created’ wealth. However, when we look at human history, economics was for a long time a servant to faith and community. It was a […]

TEARS FOR PARENTS – FORENSIC RESEARCH ON THE CHILDCARE SECTOR

UK Nursery sector risks being damaged by large corporate takeovers Smaller nurseries in England are being bought up by profit-focused companies, without necessarily creating more places or investing more in staff, according to a major new study led by UCL researchers. I have personally been involved over several years in writing and researching this report, […]

EXPERTS ARE OFTEN CORRUPT : New Research Exposes the Limits of Accountability and Enforcement in Corporate and Personal Taxation

As an expert advisor to the European Union funded project on Tax Corruption – VIRTEU – I was asked to research and advise on the challenges of tackling tax evasion and corruption. For the research I had to dig deep into my experience as an auditor, as an accounting researcher, and the decades of analysis […]

REFORMING ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE EDUCATION

A Research Proposal by Professor Atul K. Shah June 2022 The UK is a hub of global education and training in finance and accounting. However, it is also being seen as a nexus of fraud and corruption, by professionals and institutions. Major banking institutions like RBS, HSBC, Goldman Sachs and the Big 4 accounting firms […]

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS PLAY CRUCIAL ROLE IN DISRUPTING FINANCE WISDOM

New Research Published in Top Academic Journal In the last two decades, a significant number of breakthroughs in finance knowledge have come NOT from scientists or academics, but from Investigative Journalists who have taken great risks to expose frauds, deceit, corruption and inequality. However, this work is not acknowledged by the academy, precisely because it […]

KINDNESS TO STRANGERS – A Musical Extravaganza

Bhavik Haria & team Live in Concert at Colchester Arts Centre WATCH PREVIEW VIDEO AT THE FOOT OF THE PAGE December 2021 The prolific and highly versatile singer and creative artist Bhavik Haria and his team launched their new album ‘Roots and Changes’ at the Colchester Arts Centre on 5th December 2021. A truly diverse […]

BOOK REVIEW – GODDESS LUMINARY LEADERSHIP WHEEL, by Dr. LYNNE SEDGMORE CBE

Leadership is a vast topic for modern education in a variety of fields. Given the power and influence of leaders, how they manifest and exercise it makes a vast difference to the organisations and communities and the resulting motivation and effectiveness. There are hundreds of books on leadership all over the world, although most of […]

KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY ON ETHICAL FINANCE

November 2021 Net Zero Carbon targets after COP26 are forcing us to look anew at Economics and Finance. They have been at the forefront of the human attack on nature, and have led to the anthropocene. We are the species which have done irreversible damage to planet earth. Surely there must be something about our […]

A ‘PROFESSIONAL’ DIWALI WHICH GIVES HOPE AND WISDOM

Professor Atul K. Shah, City, University of London, www.atulkshah.co.uk As the world gets hotter, human culture and behaviour on planet earth needs to change dramatically. One culture which foresaw this thousands of years ago, the Hindu Dharma, had its unique festival of Diwali hosted at one of the world’s leading professional advisory firms PWC in […]

WISDOM FOR A NET ZERO CULTURE

World leaders meeting in Glasgow this week are focused on a technological fix, when what is really needed is a cultural and ideological shift. They have announced today that rainforest destruction will be curbed in the future. What about the cultural rain forests that we have in society, which are routinely destroyed or damaged by […]

SERIES TWELVE, EPISODE TWO: ETHICAL FINANCE, FAITH AND ENLIGHTENED LEADERSHIP

In this episode host Julia Streets is joined by Professor Atul K. Shah, a broadcaster and Lecturer at City University in the Department of International Politics, who has written many books on topics including ethical finance, accounting, risk, diversity and sustainability, and Anjli Shah, Investment Director at Aberdeen Standard Investments. They discuss Jain wisdom, sustainable […]

BBC Radio 4 Four Thought: Fear of Finance by Professor Atul Shah

This blog is based on a BBC radio broadcast for Radio 4 which was heard by two million people and repeated three times. You can listen again to the broadcast, and the follow-up interview on this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000yldz Finance – the very word strikes fear into the hearts and minds of millions. It is a […]

Business education must evolve. A faith-based lens can help relocate its purpose

The education offered to future business leaders, accountants and financiers is “deeply acultural, secular and exclusive”, writes City University’s Professor Atul K Shah. Faith-based approaches could guide a new model that’s fit for the modern age – one that nourishes trust, respects nature and builds more sustainable economies. Significant questions are now being asked about […]

A TRUE STORY

BEYOND SKIN – WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE DIVERSE ETHICS An impassioned plea by our client, Tim Wass MBE, former Chief Officer of RSPCA I grew up in Whitley Bay a small coastal town adjacent to Newcastle in the north-east. If a black guy walked down the road, traffic would slow, it was that rare and […]

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY BOOK

Dr. Atul K. Shah explains his new book and its huge practical relevance Britain has a huge strength in its diversity. However, rarely is this noted positively. And forget about celebration – the impression we often get through the media is that it is a problem to be solved. There is a real concern with outlook and […]

LEADERS CHOOSE A DIVERSE EXPERIENCE

MLA Board of Trustees and Directors at the Jain Temple in London Conducting the Board meeting at the Jain Centre – performing routine business but from a different place Dr. Atul Shah (centre), Founder of Diverse Ethics and MLA Board member, with Sir Andrew Motion (Chariman-left) and Roy Clare CBE (Chief Executive-right) of the MLA. […]

Diversity is about more than skirts in the Boardroom

The Davies Report reviewing Women on Boards recommended that UK FTSE 100 companies should aim for a minimum of 25% female board members representation by 2015. Atul Shah disagrees with Lord Davies’ approach and argues that there is more to boardroom diversity than the number of women around the table. My latest research on diversity in the Boardroom, sponsored […]

Fear of finance

“Finance. The very word strikes fear into the hearts and minds of millions. Money was supposed to serve society – instead, today, it has become our master.” It was with these powerful words that Professor Atul Shah began his 15-minute speech on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought on 11th August 2021. The speech – titled ‘Fear of Finance’ – gave […]

International Politics students enjoy ICAEW field trip

The classroom is not enough for learning in today’s world, according to Professor Atul K Shah from City, University of London‘s Department of International Politics. “Students need to collect a variety of experiences,” he says. “They need to meet different professionals who could act as role models and guide them in charting a future career which is purposeful and […]

LEADERS SET RARE EXAMPLE

From Left to Right – Mr. Dilip Shah, OAUK, Dr. Atul Shah, Diverse Ethics, Mr. Gavin Grant, CEO, RSPCA, Dr. Richard Ryder and Barbara Gardner, RSPCA trustees and Mrs. Tara Patani, OAUK (All Photos by Bhavik Haria) CULTURAL DIVERSITY STRENGTHENS ORGANISATIONS Atul K. Shah, Diverse Ethics At Diverse Ethics, we have developed a significant niche in the […]

ETHICAL FINANCE – A JAIN PERSPECTIVE

The world is reeling with the tsunami of finance – complex, confusing, overpowering and fraudulent. And now we have Trump to add to all this. There is a real shortage of knowledge and training about different cultures and perspectives of finance – and relatively nothing is known about the Jains. Finance is a core subject […]

Q: What did universities learn from the financial crash? A: Nothing

Most finance education is morally bankrupt. We must stop peddling dangerous lies to our students The global financial crash of 2008 led to bailouts that are still being borne by ordinary people all over the world through higher taxes, higher property prices and lower savings rates.Don’t let ‘the market’ dominate the debate on university teachingDavid […]

Beancounters – The Triumph of the Accountants and How they broke Capitalism by Richard Brooks

Book review by Atul K. Shah As Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks has long been responsible for exposing corporate corruption, especially around tax avoidance and evasion. One story kept on repeating in his research – the role of the Big 4 global accounting firms – KPMG, PWC, Deloitte and EY – in not just helping […]

Drugs and the city: an open secret, so why no testing?

When the chairman of the ethical Co-operative Bank was recently caught on camera purchasing drugs, it became a major news story. But the links between drug-taking and Wall Street or the City of London have been a truism for years. In 2005, Dr Alden Cass, a Wall Street therapist, was quoted by the Financial Times saying there is […]

It’s time to put social impact of finance on the curriculum

The global crash of 2008 kicked off a furious debate in the UK about whether or not the City of London is a real asset to the economy. There was huge anger about the multi-billion bail-out of failed banks and the size of bankers’ bonuses. The men in dark suits working in posh buildings were […]

Bankers should look eastwards for ethical guidance

The crash of 2008 revealed an ethical crisis in banking, one of our most powerful and critical industries. To encourage bankers to clean up their act, proposals including caps on bankers bonuses, better risk management and tighter regulation were all put forward. However, all attempts to change behaviour have frustrated the regulators as finance workers […]

HBOS report does little to tackle systemic problems

Remember the 2007-08 banking crash? In the build up to it, UK bankers made vast profits and their executives collected big bonuses. After the crash, they were bailed out by taxpayers, which led to increased government borrowing. We have all been suffering a never ending programme of austerity ever since. One of the biggest banks […]

Financial literacy is shockingly low and the academy must do more

The latest survey on the basic understanding of financial terms like “loan”, “interest rate” and “budget” makes for shocking reading. The Money Advice Service surveyed 3,000 adults and found that 32% did not understand the meaning of interest and a further 32% did not understand the meaning of budget. The survey also found that half the people […]