Professor Devendra Kodwani

Professor Of Financial Management And Corporate Governance

devendra.kodwani@open.ac.uk

Biography

Professional biography

Devendra has significant academic leadership experience of building institution and programmes. He has been a member of the Vice Chancellor's Executive since 2018. Since December 2023 he is responsible for international and post graduate programmes development . From 2017-18 Devendra was executive dean of the faculty of business and law and he led the two schools of business and law. The Open University Business School which has distinction of being triple accredited by AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. The Open University Business School pioneered part time distance learning model and is leading business school known for online management education. The Open University Law School is one of the largest providers of part time online distance qualifying law degree in the UK.

Devendra joined The Open University Business School in 2004 and is Professor of Financial Management and Corporate Governance based in Department of Accounting and Finance. He was previously employed in India at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Gujarat University and the Tolani Institute of Management Studies.

Over the years Devendra has built sound experience in learning design for online education and platforms. He was non-executive director on the Board of Directors of FutureLearn a global online education which is leading a revolution in innovating online learning. In 2020 he was member of task force on Digitalisation and Management Education of European Foundation for Management Development that has been considering what digitalisation means for future of management education and quality standards.

His teaching portfolio includes undergraduate and post graduate accounting and finance courses. These include Financial accounting (B291), Financial strategy (B821), Issues in international finance and investment (B854). As Masters Programme Director during 2010-2013, Devendra led the redevelopment of the Open University's flagship MBA programme, and the development of two specialist masters MSc Finance and MSc Human Resources Management. As Associate Dean Curriculum, Learning and Teaching (2013-2017), Devendra shaped learning design and learning teaching strategy for all qualifiations offered by the Faculty of Business and Law. Recently he also led on development of management and finance programmes on Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) programme on Future Learn. He also developed MOOC on Bookkeeping for Personal and Business Accounting. He has inspired and steered creation of new curriculum products micro-credentials launched on Future Learn.

His current research focuses on the evolution of regulatory institutions in India, corporate governace and ethics. He has been examining the reforms in the electricity, water and telecommunications industries in the UK and India. He is currently engaged in research on corporate governance, institutional endowments and regulatory capabilities in India. His other research interests include behavioural finance, governance, management and accounting in utilities, and derivatives. He supervises masters and doctoral students in area of finance. He also contributes to the Open2.net blog accompanying the Money Programme - see his views on tele-marketing and understanding cartels.

He was until 2013 a panel member for the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) for the Professional Accountant paper, which is part of the ACCA qualification. He is member of British Accounting and Finance Association.

Research interests

Corporate governance, regulatory economics; efficiency/productivity; measurement in utility industries using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); ethics, privatization of PSU, particularly utilities such as power, water, telecoms and gas; financial economics. He is also a contributor to the Open2.net blog accompanying the Money Programme.