Professor Martin C. Schmalz

Martin Schmalz is Professor of Finance, Economics, and Real Estate at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. He previously served as Chief Economist and Director of the Office of Economic and Risk Analysis at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the U.S. audit regulator. In that role, he led the economic analysis of audit rules protecting over $70 trillion of investor capital. 

Martin brings over 15 years of experience leading international teams of economists, data scientists, and engineers across jurisdictions and institutions. His work spans corporate governance, finance, asset management, competition policy, and AI applications in business and regulation. He has advised regulators and enforcement agencies around the world, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the European Commission, the OECD, and numerous central banks and parliaments. 

At Oxford, he has held several leadership roles, including Head of the Finance, Accounting, Management, and Economics Group, Director of the Future of Real Estate Initiative, Academic Director of the Blockchain Strategy Programme, and co-director of the Open Banking & AI in Finance Programme. 

Martin has deep transatlantic experience in regulation, investor protection, and corporate reform. He consults with UHNW individuals and family offices on asset allocation and succession planning, advises firms on regulatory strategy, and has led major restructuring and data infrastructure consolidation projects. He is particularly known for designing and executing empirical research to support causal inference in policy and corporate contexts. 

He is a member of the Family Business Network (FBN), the Financial Experts Association—a network of independent directors serving on audit committees and advisory boards—and Atlantik-Brücke e.V., a leading forum for strengthening transatlantic dialogue. He is also a Director of the Global Corporate Governance Colloquia in Brussels, and serves as Chairman of a large family office. 

He teaches finance, strategy, fintech, AI, and machine learning to executives, policymakers, and students in business, law, and engineering. He is the author of The Business of Big Data: How to Create Lasting Value in the Age of AI, and was named one of Poets & Quants’ “40 under 40” best business school professors worldwide at age 33. 

Martin holds a graduate degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Mechanical Engineering from the Universität Stuttgart and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University. His academic work was supported by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. 

His prize-winning research has been published in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies, and was covered, among others, by The New York Times, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Forbes, Fortune, Handelsblatt, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.