Prof. Lemma W. Senbet
Lemma W. Senbet is the William E. Mayer Chair Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland, College Park, and former Executive Director/CEO of African Economic Research Consortium (AERC: www.aercafrica.org), the largest and oldest economic research and training network in Africa. Prior to Maryland and AERC, he was a distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and held the Charles Albright Endowed Chair. Prof Senbet has achieved global recognition for his extensive and widely cited contributions to corporate finance, international finance, and financial sector reforms and development. He has received numerous recognitions for his impact on the profession. He has been elected twice as director of the American Finance Association and is a past president of the Western Finance Association (WFA). In 2000, Prof Senbet was inducted into the Financial Economists Roundtable (FER), a distinguished group of world-wide financial economists. In 2006, he was inducted into the Fellow of the Financial Management Association (FMA) in recognition of his career-long distinguished scholarship. In 2005, Prof Senbet was awarded an honorary doctorate by Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia’s flagship university. In 2012, he was awarded the Ethiopian Diaspora (SEED) award for exemplary lifetime achievements and community service. Prof Senbet has advised the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, AfDB, and various agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Africa on such issues as financial sector reforms. Regarding his role in the US financial industry, Prof Senbet was a director of Fotris Funds and is currently an independent director for the Hartford Funds.