UCL School of Management hosted the Finance Theory Group (FTG) Summer Conference 2025 earlier this month, marking the first time that one of the prestigious research group’s flagship events has been held in the UK.

The FTG is the world’s leading learned society in the field of finance theory – a discipline that uses economic first principles to explore big questions in finance through formal modelling. 

President of the FTG, Professor Nadya Malenko of the Carroll School of Management, Boston College, praised the School of Management’s hosting of the event as a “great success”, stressing the high scientific quality, the audience diversity, and the impeccable organisation. 

Organising the prestigious conference took over a year of preparation and Dr. Ming Yang, Associate Professor at the School of Management, led a team that also included School of Management academics Alex Gorbenko, Fred Malherbe, Ji Hee Yoon, and Yue Yuan. 

Professor Fred Malherbe, Head of the Finance, Accounting, & Economics research group at the School of Management said:

“It was a great pleasure to host the FTG at UCL. A big thanks to all speakers and participants, to Jean-Charles Rochet for an inspiring keynote lecture, and to Ming Yang and the whole team for organising. You did an amazing job!” 

The programme featured a wide range of cutting-edge research presentations across two days, covering topics such as bank competition, sustainable investing, corporate governance, and financial crises in the age of AI. The conference concluded with a keynote lecture by Professor Jean-Charles Rochet on “Microfounded Macrofinance”, offering a deep dive into the intersection of macroeconomics and finance theory.

The FTG holds two regular meetings in the US every year, where members and fellows meet to present and discuss their work. Members and fellows of the FTG are researchers from leading institutions, who work primarily on the theory of corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets.