Media Releases

Institute for Gender and the Economy Launched at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

September 19, 2016

Toron­to, ON – A new research insti­tute has been estab­lished at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment which will work to uncov­er busi­ness, career and invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in finance, man­age­ment, entre­pre­neur­ship and the econ­o­my by pro­mot­ing gen­der analy­sis in research and edu­ca­tion.

A lead­ing researcher from the Rot­man School, Prof. Sarah Kaplan, will be the inau­gur­al direc­tor of the Insti­tute.

“There are still many unan­swered ques­tions about the caus­es and con­se­quences of gen­der dynam­ics in the econ­o­my. The research agen­da will look at under­stand­ing these ques­tions using rig­or­ous schol­ar­ly research but it will also iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal solu­tions which can be ben­e­fi­cial to busi­ness and soci­ety,” says Prof. Kaplan.

Kaplan is the Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Gen­der & the Econ­o­my and Pro­fes­sor of Strate­gic Man­age­ment at the Rot­man School. Her research explores how orga­ni­za­tions par­tic­i­pate in and respond to the emer­gence of new fields and tech­nolo­gies, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on the role of inter­pre­tive prac­tices. Her stud­ies exam­ine biotech­nol­o­gy, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, finan­cial ser­vices, nan­otech­nol­o­gy and most recent­ly, the field emerg­ing at the nexus of gen­der and finance. She is the author of the best-sell­ing book, Cre­ative Destruc­tion, reg­u­lar­ly pub­lish­es in the lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals and is a fre­quent pub­lic speak­er and con­trib­u­tor to the media includ­ing Quartz, TVO and The Toron­to Star.

Vanes­sa Iaroc­ci has also joined the Rot­man School as an Exec­u­tive-in-Res­i­dence and will be work­ing close­ly with Prof. Kaplan at the Insti­tute. She has pre­vi­ous­ly spent close to two decades in pro­gres­sive­ly senior roles span­ning cor­po­rate finance, strat­e­gy and oper­a­tions at PwC and TD Bank. As a mem­ber of TD Wealth’s Lead­er­ship team, she worked along­side glob­al experts, includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and The Saud­er Busi­ness Fam­i­lies Cen­tre, on a bank-wide ini­tia­tive to posi­tion TD as the lead­ing per­son­al finance des­ti­na­tion for women. Iaroc­ci holds a Bach­e­lor of Com­merce degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and a Char­tered Accoun­tant des­ig­na­tion. She is active in the com­mu­ni­ty and par­tic­i­pates in a num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions that sup­port the advance­ment of women and girls.

A pri­ma­ry focus of the Insti­tute will be to trans­late schol­ar­ly research for prac­ti­tion­ers in order to sup­port change in their prac­tices. The Insti­tute will also engage stu­dents in the School’s degree pro­grams through research projects, cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment, and intern­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties. The work of the Insti­tute will be con­duct­ed in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with cor­po­rate, gov­ern­men­tal and NGO part­ners.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Insti­tute, includ­ing upcom­ing events and new research, please vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca/GenderEconomy.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness and soci­etal chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416.946.3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
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