Andreas Hoepner

Professor Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Ph.D., is a Financial Data Scientist working towards the vision of a Conflict-Free Capitalism. While the vision is unlikely to be fully achievable, Andreas’ view is that anyone can strive to make a regular contribution to reducing abusive conflicts of interests and thereby enhancing the fairness of our society’s financial system. Formally, Andreas is Full Professor of Operational Risk, Banking & Finance at the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School & the Lochlann Quinn School of Business of University College Dublin (UCD), serves on the schools’ management team as Vice Principal (VP) for Research, Innovation & Impact (2021-), served as VP Equality Diversity and Inclusion (2019-2022), is a named supervisor for UCD’s SFI Centre for Research Training in Machine Learning, and leads the GreenWatch research group. Prof. Hoepner is serving as Head of the Data Science Hub of the European Union’s 2nd Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF2). Prior to PSF2, Andreas served on the EU’s 1st Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF1, 2021-2023) and the EU’s Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance (2018-2020). He is the only member to have been appointed to all three phases in personal capacity (i.e. based on personal expertise rather than representing a relevant legal entity/stakeholder group). In his TEG role, he co-invented ‘EU Climate Transition and EU Paris-Aligned Investing’ (EU Regulation 2020/1818) by aligning investment strategies across asset classes with the IPCC’s 1.5°C trajectory (with no or limited overshoot). During PSF1, he inter alia developed the categorisation of Taxonomy Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) criteria into five (internationally interoperable) usability types.
Before joining UCD in June 2017, Andreas was Associate Professor of Finance at the ICMA Centre of Henley Business School (2013-17), where he remains a Visiting Professor of Finance. He is also Visiting Professor in Financial Data Science at the University of Hamburg and is currently serving on independent advisory/assessment committees inter alia for BJSS, Datamaran, ExecuShe, Finance Map, IPE Awards (Categories: Climate Change Risk, ESG, Smart Beta), Kempen (with emphasis on boutique SDG investing), RepRisk (with emphasis on classifications) and SDGLabs.ai. Andreas received his PhD from St. Andrews in June 2010, where he was on faculty (2009-13). He is co-founder and chair of two socially motivated enterprises: ReFine Research Project which praises transparent pension funds (2013-21) and Sociovestix Labs (SVL). Co-founded with Prof. Borth, Dr. Hees and Dr. Rezec as a spin-off from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence [DFKI]), SVL is committed to fostering innovations in support of the Sustainable Development Principles while adhering to the Asilomar AI Principles. Prof. Hoepner also led on data science for the ‘Cyber Readiness for Boards’ project funded by the UK National Cyber Security Centre (2019-21), advised the United Nations (2021) and EU’s DG INTPA (2022-23) on Green Taxonomies, served as lead academic advisor for the Principles for Responsible Investment (2009-16) and consulted for organisations such as EIB, EIF, EU JRC, NZ Super or the World Bank.
Andreas is the sole inventor of a US patent titled ‘Investment Performance Measurement’ (No. US8751357 B1). His research won several awards including a 2019 (with Oikonomou, Sautner, Starks & Zhou), 2015 (with Adamsson) and 2010 PRI Best Paper Awards. Andreas publishes interdisciplinary in journals such as Accounting, Auditing & Accountability; Brain & Behavior; Business Ethics Quarterly; Ecological Economics; Environmental and Resource Economics; European Journal of Finance; International Review of Financial Analysis; Journal of Business Ethics; Journal of Business Finance & Accounting; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Economic Geography; Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money; Nature Climate Change; Official Journal of the European Union; Regional Studies or Research Policy. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty, co-organises conferences with policy makers such as Promoting Sustainable Finance at the European Commission or the EU Science Hub Summer Schools on Sustainable Finance (1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th) and co-edits special issues of academic journals on Econometrics & Financial Data Science (1st / 2nd / 3rd), GHG reporting and the EU’s Green Taxonomy. More generally, Prof. Hoepner’s research earned him, aged 33, an invitation to serve as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015 for "exceptional contributions to the study of finance, particularly ... responsible investment”. Aged 37, he was the to date youngest recipient of the Irish Sustainable Finance Person of the Year Award. Andreas is most proud, however, about his record as Ph.D. and post-doc supervisor with more than ten students having successfully graduated into roles at Fidelity, ICMA Centre, MSCI, or the Universities of Belfast, Cardiff, Hamburg, Oxford and Yale.
Besides these academic honours, Prof. Hoepner’s research and views have been covered in international media including ARD (Monitor), BBC (incl. World Business Report, Business Live, Radio 4 today programme, Radio 5 Live), Bloomberg, CNN, DW, EU Observer, FT, Forbes, Fortune, Guardian, IPE, New York Times, P&I, Politico, Reuters, RTE, Washington Post and Australian, Austrian, Canadian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Singaporean, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss & UAE media. He also presented his research to key academic audiences (e.g. AFA, EFA), large asset owners (e.g. AP 1/2/3/4/6/7, APG, BPP, BVK, CalPERS, CDC, Church of England, DBU, Elo, GPIF, IFC, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, LGPS Central, Lothian, MP, NBIM, NIB, NYS DFS, NZS, OTPP, PD, PGGM, PKA, Publica, Railpen, Unisuper, USS, VBL, World Bank Pension), and regulatory bodies (e.g. Bundesbank, Central Bank of Ireland, CSRC, EBA, EEA, EIOPA, European Commission, FCA, IOSCO, SEAI, UBA). An extensive record of Prof. Hoepner’s publications, roles, and outreach activities can be found on his CV, which also discloses the ISINs of his personal investments to practise full transparency around any potential conflicts of interest. In professional roles, Prof. Hoepner believes that traceable signals empower wonderful decisions. Hence, he commits to efficiently executing exclusively effective engagements. When interpreting academic behaviour, Andreas follows the credo: evidence is discovered, theories are promoted.