Podcasts

Professor of Finance and Executive Director of the Société Générale Energy & Finance Chair at HEC Paris, Jean-Michel Gauthier spoke to us on March 3, one week after Russia invaded Ukraine. Jean-Michel is a veteran of the energy business. After a start in the oil and gas industry, he moved to the energy consulting for 16 years as a partner at Deloitte. In parallel, he joined HEC Paris’ finance department in 2006. The school campus is where we discuss the dramatic events developing in Ukraine. Jean-Michel focuses on a key factor behind the conflict: the question of energy. Not just the pipelines that bring Europe 40% of its natural gas and much of its oil – but also the knock-on effects on all energy sources that prop up our global economy. He helps us understand what role energy is playing in this ongoing conflict and where these upheavals could lead the entire planet.

HEC Paris Assistant Professor in Marketing, Klaus Miller, analyzes the February 3 Facebook/Meta stock market plunge. What exactly does it tell us about private data on internet and its links to the advertising world? We meet Klaus on February 8, the very day he and five co-researchers self-published “The Impact of the GDPR on the Online Advertising Market”. This book focuses on Europe’s GDPR and how it affects online publicity. In a wide-ranging discussion on personal data and the advertising industry, Klaus provides insights on ad blockers on news websites and their impact on our reading habits.

Dr. Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj has spent decades analyzing women for leadership roles. Shortly after joining HEC Qatar as Associate Professor in Gender Diversity and Entrepreneurial Leadership, she published her third book “Futureproof Your Career”. We caught up with the prolific academic at the 2021 Women’s Forum in Paris to discuss cognitive diversity, her research on Asian communities and leadership and teaching entrepreneurial leadership at HEC.

Just days after the conclusion of the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) in Barcelona, HEC Paris Bouygues Professor Bertrand Quélin and SASI Master's graduate Isaac Smadja publish a key study of six award-winning smart cities across the globe. The 238-page eBook is the result of a partnership between Bouygues and HEC in the context of the school’s Smart City & the Common Good Chair. We exchange informally with Professor Quélin about the advantages of, and challenges to, tomorrow’s cities.

The upswing in inflation figures on both sides of the Atlantic, called “reflation”, continues to worry governments and the public. But what is behind these inflationary pressures? What are the consequences of this 13-year-high in the euro zone (4.1% in October); and 30-year record surge in prices in the United States? To find out what caused these increases and to analyze what could happen in the future, we’ve turn to two HEC academics whose research is linked to the inflation question. Associate Professor Eric Mengus specializes in monetary and macro-economics. His colleague, Associate Professor Gaetano Gaballo, is a researcher in the same domains, and he’s also worked for seven years as a senior economist at the Banque de France. In mid-October, they reflected on a wide range of issues linked to reflation.

The September 26 federal elections in Germany have been earmarked as one of its most important in the past two decades. For a start, it signals the end of Angela Merkel’s tenure as Chancellor, after 16 years at the helm of Europe’s largest economy. To comment on this landmark vote, its uncertain outcome, and economic outlook, we turn to Armin Steinbach, HEC professor in law and economics. Steinbach is ideally placed to comment: prior to his September arrival at our business school, he spent over a decade as a government official and adviser in the Ministries of Finance and of Economic Affairs and Germany’s Parliament.

On September 7, El Salvador became the world’s first nation to make the cryptocurrency bitcoin legal tender across the country. This bold initiative from the tiny Central American state is dissected by HEC Paris Professor in Finance Bruno Biais, who has written several top research papers on cryptocurrency.

Jean-Noël Barrot is an associate professor at HEC Paris and member of parliament for Yvelines in France’s National Assembly, combining his political work with his research in finance. On June 29, he submitted a report to the government in which he detailed proposals to help France recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, Jean-Noël Barrot explains how he manages to combine his research and his role in parliament in an effective way.

For the 32nd Olympic Games, one of South Africa’s modern icons, 800-meter champion Caster Semenya, will not be making the trip northwards. She has been barred from the Tokyo Olympics where she had hoped to defend a crown she won in 2012 and 2016. We discuss with Professor Matteo Winkler the legal, sociological and ethical implications of the Caster Mokgadi Semenya v. IAAF (now World Athletics) case. World Athletics’ regulations target female athletes like Semenya who are born with naturally high levels of testosterone, a characteristic that was labelled first as “hyperandrogenism” and then as “difference of sexual development”. Winkler and fellow academic, Doctor Giovanna Gilleri from the European University Institute published a 40-page study deconstructing the narratives surrounding the case and reflecting on the relationship between the law of sports, politics, gender and bodies – and the West’s sometimes uncomfortable position on femininity in the Global South.