Professor Kalok CHAN , City University of Hong Kong 

Professor Kalok Chan is Chair Professor of Finance at City University of Hong Kong.  He served as the Dean of College of Business from November 2023 to May 2025. Prior to joining CityU in November 2023, Professor Chan was the Wei Lun Professor of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, serving as Dean of CUHK Business School from 2014 to 2019 and Chairman of the Department of Finance from 2021 to 2023.Before that he worked as the Synergis-Geoffrey Yeh Professor of Finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he served as the Head of Finance Department (2003-2013) and Acting Dean of HKUST Business School (2013-14). He was the Founding Director of the HKUST-NYU Stern Joint Master in Global Finance programme. Prior to joining HKUST, he was an Associate Professor of Finance at Arizona State University.Professor Chan obtained his BSSc in Economics from CUHK, and PhD in Finance from Ohio State University. As a leading scholar and a prominent researcher, he has published in numerous top ranked finance journals, and has been ranked as the top finance researcher in the Asia-Pacific region. His research interests focus on dynamics of asset prices, derivatives, market micro-structure, and international financial markets.Active on several public bodies in Hong Kong, Professor Chan is a past President of the Asian Finance Association, and currently serves on a number of committees including the Human Capital Committee of HK Financial Services and Development Council, TraHK Supervisory Committee, Hong Kong Academy of Finance and HKIMR Council of Advisers for Applied Research.

Professor Robert Faff(Editor-in-Chief, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal) , Bond University 

Robert Faff (FASSA) is Research Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, Emeritus Professor at UQ and Honorary Adjunct Professor at Bond University. He has an international reputation in empirical finance research: securing 15 Australian Research Council grants (funding exceeding $4 million); 360+ refereed journal publications – 48 x A* (ABDC); career citations 23,000+ (Google Scholar); with a h-index of 74. His particular passion is nurturing the career trajectories of early career researchers. Robert has supervised almost 50 PhD students to successful completion and examined more than 50 PhD dissertations. Building on a 40-year+ academic career, his signature focus is “Pitching Research”[https://ssrn.com/abstract=2462059], with worldwide penetration signalled by: (a) 25,000+ SSRN downloads; (b) 400+ pitching talks/events; (c) at 37Australian universities; and (d) spanning 56 different countries. Further, he is the Founder & President of the InSPiR2eS research network [https://pitchingresearch.com/inspir2es-network/], a globally-facing research network primarily aimed at research training and capacity building, resting on a foundation theme of responsible science. Robert is also the creator of the InSPiR2eS Centre for Responsible Science [https://pitchingresearch.com/ic4rs/]. In addition, Robert is current Editor-in-Chief of Pacific-Basin Finance Journal; formerly: Editor of Accounting and Finance (2002-2011) and Associate Editor of several other leading journals including Abacus and Australian Journal of Management.

Professor Paresh Narayan(Guest Editor, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal) , Monash University 

Paresh Kumar Narayan is a Professor at Monash Business School. He is the President of the Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association, Editor-in-Chief of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, and Managing Editor of Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking. Paresh is also a Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, and an adjunct Professor in several universities around the world.

Paresh’s research interests are in Applied Econometrics and Financial Markets. He has published over 380 papers in international refereed journals and has the distinguished title of a high cited researcher over 5 consecutive years (2017-2021), with an h-index of 88. He is ranked 544 by Stanford University amongst 9 million researchers globally.

Professor Narayan is a consultant to multiple organisations, including, Bank Indonesia, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Asian Development Bank, Development Bank Institute, Commonwealth Secretariat, AusAID, South Pacific Commission, Forum Secretariat, UNDP, ILO, Solomon Island National Provident Fund, Central Bank of Solomon Islands, USP, and, Economic Research Institute of ASEAN (ERIA).

Professor John WEI , The Hong Kong Polytechnic University