Didier Cossin is UBS Professor of Banking and Finance at IMD, Switzerland. He specializes in finance, with an emphasis on risk and investment assessment, on financial evaluation and financial structuring with options and real options and the applications of advanced techniques to concerns such as assessing investments, structuring M&As for value creation, project financing, high tech valuation, structuring joint ventures, assessing, pricing and managing risks, notably risk of default (credit risk), etc.
He holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University (Robert C. Merton Chair) and is a former Visiting Scholar (Fulbright Fellow) from the Department of Economics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a former student from ENS (rue d'Ulm) Paris and holds Master degrees from Sorbonne University as well as EHESS.
Before being based in Switzerland, Didier Cossin has worked in London for Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, and in Tokyo for Roussel-Uclaf, a pharmaceutical company (as it was considering an Initial Offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange). He has taught at Harvard University where he obtained two Derek Bok Awards for excellence in teaching.
Didier Cossin is currently a member of the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the Eastern Finance Association and the European Finance Association. He is a consultant or an executive teacher with the United Nations as well as with central banks (European Central Bank, Dutch National Bank), financial institutions and corporations (such as HSBC, Vodafone, Schlumberger, BP, Daimler-Chrysler, Shell, Coca-Cola, Holcim, EMC2, ABB, Aker Kvaerner, PPR and others) as well as funds and venture capital based start-ups in Europe and abroad.
Didier Cossin has been full professor at HEC, University of Lausanne from 1996 to 2002 (associate professor 1993 to 1996). He has chaired the Department of Management from 1995 to 1997 and has been the director of the Institute of Banking & Financial Management there from 1997 to 2002.
Didier Cossin has obtained numerous research grants on modern finance for topics ranging from corporate governance to swaps and exotic credit derivatives. His current research has three major strands. One focuses on credit risk issues (credit risk pricing, management, and the use of credit derivatives for credit risk management). Another addresses the use of risk thinking and real options in finance, notably for high tech investments and in investment contracting. He also studies corporate governance issues (international comparison of top management turnover and board interlockings).
He is the author or co-author of two books, several book chapters in other authors' books, and of many refereed publications (and other non-refereed ones), some of which have obtained citations of excellence or other awards. Didier Cossin is member of the board of Merrill Lynch Derivative Products and of the Academic Advisory Board of Fitch Investors. |