Media Releases

Chair in Canadian Business History appointed at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

October 30, 2012

TORONTO, ON — A researcher and pro­fes­sor of busi­ness his­to­ry and cor­po­rate finance has been appoint­ed as the first hold­er of the L.R. Wilson/R.J. Cur­rie Chair in Cana­di­an Busi­ness His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment.

Prof. Christo­pher Kobrak will be a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor and hold the chair at the Rot­man School. The appoint­ment begins with the 2012/13 aca­d­e­m­ic year for a three-year term. Dur­ing that time, he will con­tin­ue to be a pro­fes­sor of finance at ESCP Europe in Paris, France, where he has taught since 1991. Sub­se­quent­ly, he will join the Rot­man School full-time. His main areas of teach­ing include inter­na­tion­al finance, finan­cial the­o­ry, espe­cial­ly cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, and busi­ness and finan­cial his­to­ry. His research has con­cen­trat­ed on cor­po­rate and finan­cial his­to­ry, which includes how the evo­lu­tion of cap­i­tal mar­kets and polit­i­cal risk has affect­ed busi­ness strate­gies. His spe­cial inter­est is in the inter­face between his­to­ry and man­age­ment, espe­cial­ly how pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ic events have helped shape cor­po­rate forms, inter­na­tion­al invest­ment deci­sions, and gov­er­nance struc­tures. Among his degrees, he holds a PhD (Busi­ness His­to­ry) from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York, and a post-doc­tor­al Habil­i­ta­tion in Man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toulouse.

The L.R. Wilson/R.J. Cur­rie Chair in Cana­di­an Busi­ness His­to­ry was fund­ed by sev­er­al promi­nent busi­ness lead­ers, includ­ing Lyn­ton (Red) Wil­son; Richard Cur­rie; Antho­ny Fell;  James Fleck, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of busi­ness gov­ern­ment rela­tions at the Rot­man School; Hen­ry N.R. (Hal) Jack­man, for­mer chan­cel­lor of U of T; and John McArthur, dean emer­i­tus of Har­vard University’s Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion.

The devel­op­ment of busi­ness his­to­ry as an area of teach­ing and research at the Rot­man School has been led by Joe Mar­tin, an adjunct pro­fes­sor and exec­u­tive-in-res­i­dence. His pio­neer­ing course for MBA stu­dents in Cana­di­an busi­ness his­to­ry led to the pub­li­ca­tion of Relent­less Change: A Case­book for the Study of Cana­di­an Busi­ness His­to­ry in 2010 by Rot­man-UT Pub­lish­ing, an imprint of Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Press.

Prof. Kobrak and Mar­tin will con­tin­ue to teach and devel­op cours­es in busi­ness his­to­ry.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions. The School is cur­rent­ly rais­ing $200 mil­lion to ensure that Cana­da has the world-class busi­ness school it deserves. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Office: 416–946-3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
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