Benjamin C. Esty

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration and Head of the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. Prior to becoming Unit Head in 2009, he was the founding faculty chairman of the General Management Program (GMP), a comprehensive leadership program designed to create outstanding business leaders. Professor Esty currently teaches the introductory finance course in the first year of the MBA program, but has taught a variety of elective courses including advanced corporate finance and project finance. The project finance course, called Large-Scale Investment (LSI), analyzed how firms structure, value, finance and negotiate large capital investments. He also teaches in a variety of executive education programs and serves as the faculty chairman for the Summer Venture in Management Program (a management training program for college students designed to promote educational diversity and opportunity--see the article describing the SVMP program). Professor Esty has received the Student Association Award for teaching excellence, the Apgar Award for teaching innovations, and the Greenhill Award for outstanding service to the school.

His current research focuses on corporate finance, project and infrastructure finance, and financial strategy. His articles have been published in a variety of academic and practitioner-oriented journals. In addition, he has written more than 100 case studies, technical notes, and teaching notes on project finance, financial strategy, mergers and acquisitions, emerging market investments, and valuation issues. Collectively, HBS Publishing has sold almost one million copies of his cases, and nine of them are currently or have been classified as HBS "bestsellers." The case studies and notes on project finance are contained in a book entitled Modern Project Finance: A Casebook (Wiley). Professor Esty is an associate editor of the Emerging Markets Review (EMR) and an Editor of the SSRN on-line journal called Financial Educator: Courses, Cases, & Teaching Abstracts, which publicizes the newest ideas in teaching materials, approaches, and methods. Formerly, he was an associate editor of the Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), Journal of Money, Credit & Banking (JMCB), Financial Management (FM), and Journal of Financial Services Research (JFSR).

In addition to his academic research, Professor Esty has served as a consultant to and led training programs for investment banks, consulting firms, government agencies, and multi-national corporations on a broad range of investment, financing, valuation, and leadership issues. In addition, he serves as an independent trustee for the Eaton Vance family of mutual funds and has served as an expert witness and consultant for litigation involving corporate finance and complex valuation issues.

Professor Esty received his Ph.D. in Business Economics with a concentration in finance from Harvard University; his MBA with high distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School; and his BA degree in Economics with honors and distinction from Stanford University.