Dr Ulf Axelson

Ulf Axelson joined the London School of Economics in 2009. Since February 2010, he is the Abraaj Capital Reader in Finance and Private Equity and the director of the MSc in Finance and Private Equity program. Dr Axelson was previously an Associate Professor of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics, and before that an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Carnegie Mellon University and holds an MBA (civilekonom) from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Doctor Axelson's research lies within the fields of private equity, financial innovation and security design, corporate finance, auction theory, and financial intermediation. His research has been published in leading finance journals such as the Journal of Finance and the Review of Financial Studies, and has been widely presented at leading universities as well as numerous conferences. He won the Brattle Group Prize for the best paper in corporate finance published in the Journal of Finance 2009 (for the paper “Why are Buyouts Levered? The Financial Structure of Private Equity Firms”, joint with Per Strömberg and Michael Weisbach), and his research was awarded the Henderson Award for Excellence in Economic Theory in 2000.

At the London School of Economics, Dr. Axelson has been teaching corporate finance to MSc Accounting and Finance and MSc Strategy and Economics students. He has also taught corporate finance courses at the Stockholm School of Economics and the University of Chicago. Doctor Axelson was awarded the “Best Teacher” award in the MBA program at the Stockholm School of Economics in 2006.