Kevin Keasey
Kevin Keasey is Professor of Accounting and Finance, Director of the International Banking Institute and Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance at Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds.
Early life and education
Keasey was born in Hartlepool on 5th October 1955 and educated at Brinkburn Grammar School. He was a keen rugby player and represented County and trialled for Northern England at the School level. He was an economics undergraduate of St Cuthbert's Society, University of Durham and studied for his MA and PhD in economics at University of Newcastle upon Tyne. During his university career, he had a number of jobs including grave digging, a gardener, blast furnace 3rd hand, storekeeper, plumber's mate, RAC mechanic and professional economist at Cleveland County Research. The hobbies and interests he developed during his early years and university career have lasted him a lifetime and include photography , woodworking, boats and motorcycles.
Academic career
Keasey has spent his academic career focusing on the four pillars of Leadership, Research and PhD Supervision, Curriculum development and Teaching. In all of these activities, he has been goal focused and achieved external recognition for his achievements.
Leadership
Since being appointed at the age of 33 to the Chair in Accounting and Finance (A&F) [1] at the University of Leeds in 1989 (he was previously Reader in A&F at the University of Warwick), Keasey has been the Head of the A&F Department on a number of occasions, with more than 17 years of total service. He finished his last term of office in 2017, at that time the A&F department achieved the unique position of being ranked Number 1 in all of the UK university league tables. Between the periods of being Head of the Department, he founded the International Banking Institute (1997), the Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance (2005) and the Leeds Enterprise Centre (2009).
Curriculum development
Keasey has a long history of curriculum development and innovation. In the early to the mid-1980s, he was involved with developing some of the earliest MBAs (Master of Business Administration) at the Universities of Newcastle and Nottingham. This was followed by his involvement in the highly innovative Distance Learning and Far East MBAs at Warwick University. He took the lessons learned from this experience to jointly lead the development of the Executive and Singapore MBAs at the University of Leeds. He jointly established Leeds University Management School to host these activities – this eventually became the foundation part of Leeds University Business School (LUBS). He also initiated in the early 1990s the first taught MA programme in the School – the MA in Economics and Finance. Working with other faculties he has since initiated other very successful and innovative taught MSc programmes – Mathematics and Finance, and Law and Finance.
In addition to the above, he developed a number of bespoke executive programmes for external organisations – the largest of which was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Financial Sector Scheme for the former USSR (to the value of £4.5m in current terms).
Teaching
Given his background and research interests, it is not surprising he has taught across the whole range of accounting, finance and banking subjects at all levels. He brings a combination of academic knowledge and practical experience to his teaching. Students appreciate the balance of the academic and the practical, and he has been awarded the Dean's prize for teaching on more than one occasion and is often nominated for teaching awards.
Professional career
As well as establishing, leading and building academic units and programmes, Keasey has substantial and extensive experience as an entrepreneur (listed and private), a corporate director (Main and Aim-listed) and a mentor to senior executives in the private and public sectors. He has been actively involved in all parts of the corporate life cycle from many perspectives (running and being a director of companies, funding from private equity, sitting on the Northern Panel of the Stock Exchange, being a judge of Entrepreneur of the Year, etc.).
[2] He was a Reader in Accounting and Finance at the University of Warwick until 1989 when he was appointed to his current post at Leeds.[1][3]