Imperial College Business School has strengthened its global academic standing with the appointment of a diverse cohort of international scholars to its faculty for the 2025-26 academic year. Drawn from leading institutions across Europe, North America, Asia and beyond, the new hires bring expertise spanning finance, innovation, sustainability, digital transformation and organisational behavior. Their arrival underscores Imperial’s strategic focus on tackling world-scale challenges through cutting-edge research and practice-oriented teaching, while deepening the School’s connections with industry, policy and the wider global business community.
Global talent reshapes Imperial Business School faculty for the 2025-26 academic year
The School’s latest appointments draw on academic strength from five continents, reinforcing a classroom experience where debates on climate finance, digital disruption and inclusive leadership are informed by truly international perspectives. New professors arrive from leading institutions in Singapore, São Paulo, Toronto and Cape Town, bringing with them research portfolios that span AI-driven strategy, enduring supply chains and the economics of inequality.Their combined expertise will bolster existing research centres and seed new cross-faculty initiatives, with early plans for collaborative labs focusing on frontier topics such as green fintech and responsible data governance. This influx of experience is expected to deepen collaboration with industry partners, offering students closer engagement with global boardrooms and policy forums.
Alongside research impact, the incoming cohort is set to diversify learning formats and assessment, piloting immersive simulations, mixed-reality case studies and live consulting studios with multinational organisations. Students will encounter a broader range of voices and methodologies through:
- Interdisciplinary modules co-taught with Engineering, Data Science and Public Health.
- Global field labs in emerging markets, co-designed with local universities.
- Executive clinics where MBA and MSc participants advise real clients under faculty supervision.
| Region | New Faculty | Primary Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Europe & UK | 4 | Climate finance, fintech policy |
| North America | 3 | AI strategy, behavioural analytics |
| Asia-Pacific | 3 | Platform economies, digital innovation |
| Latin America & Africa | 2 | Inclusive growth, social entrepreneurship |
Cross border research expertise to drive innovation in finance technology and sustainability
Leveraging networks from Singapore to São Paulo, the incoming faculty bring a collaborative mindset that blurs traditional disciplinary and geographic boundaries. Their projects pair AI-driven financial modelling with climate risk analytics,explore inclusive digital payment systems for emerging markets,and test how green capital can be mobilised at scale through innovative regulation and blockchain infrastructure. Many have held advisory roles with central banks, development agencies and fintech start-ups, enabling them to translate policy debates and market dynamics into actionable insights for industry and government. This emphasis on evidence-based experimentation positions the School as a laboratory where new ideas in financial stability, sustainable investment and technological governance can be rapidly piloted and refined.
These appointments will also reshape the learning surroundings on campus, with new electives, research labs and international field projects that give students direct exposure to frontier work in fintech, sustainable finance and data ethics.Teaching will increasingly be structured around live datasets and cross-border case studies, supported by faculty-led research clusters that connect London with key innovation hubs worldwide.
- Fintech sandboxes co-designed with regulators and start-ups
- Climate-finance studios integrating satellite data and policy modelling
- Joint labs with engineering and environmental sciences
- Exchange residencies at partner universities on five continents
| Region | Focus Area | Impact Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | RegTech & digital markets | Sharper financial supervision |
| Africa | Mobile money ecosystems | Greater financial inclusion |
| Asia-Pacific | Green bonds & carbon markets | Scaling low-carbon investment |
| Latin America | Climate-risk insurance | Resilient local economies |
Student experience set to evolve through diverse teaching methods and industry partnerships
Incoming academics will introduce a richer mix of learning formats, moving seamlessly between case-based debate, live simulations and data-driven labs to mirror the complexity of modern business. Cohorts will work on real-time challenges sourced from corporate partners, from fintech risk scenarios to net-zero transition planning, sharpening their decision-making under pressure. In redesigned modules, lectures become launchpads for applied exploration, as students rotate through studio-style breakout spaces, analytics suites and virtual collaboration rooms. This shift is expected to foster sharper critical thinking and cross-cultural teamwork, especially as visiting professors from Asia, Europe and the Americas bring contrasting regulatory, ethical and entrepreneurial perspectives into the classroom.
New and expanded alliances with global organisations will anchor theory in practice, with students embedded in co-created projects that run across terms rather than as one-off internships. Underpinning this is a portfolio of learning opportunities that combines academic rigor with workplace immersion:
- Co-designed modules featuring guest lectures and assessment briefs led by industry specialists.
- Innovation sprints where student teams prototype solutions for partner firms in under a week.
- Rotations across sectors including sustainability, healthcare, digital finance and creative industries.
- Global virtual teams collaborating with partner universities and multinational corporations.
| Learning format | Industry role | Key student outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Live case clinics | Executives share current dilemmas | Evidence-based decision skills |
| Data labs | Firms provide anonymised datasets | Advanced analytical literacy |
| Field immersions | On-site visits and shadowing | Operational insight and empathy |
| Capstone studios | Co-supervised by faculty and partners | Portfolio-ready impact projects |
Strategic recommendations to leverage new faculty strengths for global impact and policy influence
To translate the expertise of the incoming cohort into meaningful global outcomes, the School will prioritise cross-border collaboration and evidence-based engagement with decision-makers. New academics will be encouraged to anchor their research agendas in high-impact themes such as climate finance, digital regulation and inclusive innovation, while partnering with multilateral bodies, central banks and NGOs. This approach will be reinforced by bespoke policy labs, joint appointments with public institutions and co-authored position papers designed for ministers, regulators and industry leaders rather than solely for academic journals. In parallel, the School will integrate these scholars into flagship executive programmes, ensuring that policy insights move swiftly from the seminar room to boardrooms and government briefings.
Internally, the faculty’s diverse methodological and regional specialisms will be woven into a coherent strategy through curated networks and agile teaching innovations. These will include:
- Global impact clusters that group scholars by themes such as sustainable cities, fintech governance and health systems transformation.
- Policy sprints where faculty and students co-develop rapid-response briefs on emerging crises for international organisations.
- Embedded field projects in partner countries to pilot scalable interventions, from green supply chains to data ethics frameworks.
- Open-access insight series that distils complex research into concise, multilingual briefing notes.
| Faculty Strength | Policy Focus | Primary Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Climate finance & risk | Net-zero regulation | IFIs, central banks |
| AI & digital markets | Tech governance | Regulators, G20 groups |
| Inclusive entrepreneurship | SME and social policy | UN agencies, local governments |
Key Takeaways
As Imperial Business School prepares to welcome this new cohort of global scholars for the 2025-26 academic year, the institution is signaling more than just a routine expansion of its faculty. It is reinforcing its commitment to research-led teaching, international collaboration, and real-world impact at a time of rapid change in business and society.
With expertise spanning finance, innovation, sustainability, digital transformation and beyond, these appointments are set to shape not only classroom experience and research output, but also the School’s role within Imperial College London and the broader global business community.
Their arrival underlines a clear message: Imperial Business School intends to remain at the forefront of management education and thought leadership-attracting talent from around the world to help define what business scholarship, and business practice, will look like in the years ahead.
