Visiting Professor Colm Kelleher shares insights with students and staff

Colm Kelleher

On 15 March, Visiting Professor Colm Kelleher spent a day in Loughborough sharing his insights on banking developments and crises with students and academics from Loughborough Business School.

Colm Kelleher presenting to students and staff.

MBA students started the day with Professor Mike Kennard, Director of Executive and Professional Education, exploring crisis management issues – including an exercise where they were stranded in a desert and had to work out how best to survive. This was followed by an engaging talk from Professor Kelleher titled ‘Crisis Management: Lessons from the Board’.

Colm outlined the need for organisations to plan for crises, while recognising that by their very nature, crises cannot be predicted with any certainty – and every crisis is different. Once a crisis occurs, it is necessary for senior management to act quickly with a small team of key personnel. He then answered questions from students on a wide range of topics.

After lunch with Professor Nick Jennings, Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University, Professor Kelleher headed to Loughborough Business School to meet with Professor Chris Holland on technology issues, Professor Karligash Glass on banking productivity matters, and Professor Alistair Milne on the banking Fnality Project.

Colm Kelleher delivering a lecture to students.

This was followed by a talk to second and final year BSc Economics and BSc Finance and Management students on financial crisis insights.

Colm began by talking about the global financial crisis of 2007-09 and reflected on how regulators and bank management have worked to ensure that regulated banking systems are far more resilient now than they were then. He warned, however, about the shadow banking system.

Economics student Nikolay Bekyarski commented: “Wow! What an amazing speech by Colm Kelleher, Chairman of the Board at UBS. The insight into the financial crisis of 2008, its consequences, and impacts on regulation and the business models of banks today was truly insightful.

“Alongside the discussion of the reformulation of the banking system, the recent one-year anniversary of the acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS was very eye-opening. How Professor Kelleher was approached by the Swiss government, and the technical approaches he took to achieve the success of the acquisition, were very enlightening.”

We look forward to Professor Kelleher’s planned return in November.