Speaker Profiles
Madhav Rajan (Speaker)
Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting, Chicago Booth
Madhav Rajan joined the Chicago Booth faculty on July 1, 2017, as Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting.
Before joining Booth, Rajan spent 16 years on the faculty of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he was the Robert K. Jaedicke Professor of Accounting, with a courtesy appointment in the Law School. He served as senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2010-2016, overseeing the school's MBA program. From 2002-2010, he was area coordinator for the accounting faculty group. Previously, he served on the faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, from 1990-2001.
While at Stanford, Rajan received the Robert T. Davis Award for Lifetime Achievement and Service (2017), and the Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award (2004). He also was the recipient of the David W. Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching at Wharton (2000) and the Alexander Henderson Award for Excellence in Economic Theory (1990).
As Dean of Booth, Rajan has focused on deepening the school's ties to the University of Chicago, attracting and retaining the best faculty, completing the new Hong Kong campus, and sustaining positive momentum in the University campaign during its final year.
His primary area of research interest is the economics-based analysis of management accounting issues, especially as they relate to the choice of internal control and performance systems in firms. He has carried out analytical, empirical, and field-based research on the role of information in incentive contracting, the value of nonfinancial and subjective performance measures, and the structural properties and usefulness of common financial ratios.
Rajan has served as editor of The Accounting Review, as well as Associate Editor for both the Accounting and Operations areas for Management Science. He has twice been a plenary speaker at the AAA Management Accounting Conference. He is coauthor of Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, whose 16th edition was published by Pearson Prentice Hall in January 2017. He is also coauthor of Managerial Accounting, whose first edition was published by Pearson in January 2013.
He is a Director of iShares, Inc. and a Trustee of the iShares Trust.
Rajan received his Bachelor's degree in Commerce from the University of Madras, India, and an MS in Accounting, an MS in Industrial Administration, and a PhD in Accounting from Carnegie Mellon University.
Calvin Chu, MBA ’09 (AXP-8) (Speaker)
Partner, Eden Strategy Institute
Calvin Chu Yee Ming is a Partner at Eden Strategy Institute, with responsibilities in thought leadership, strategy design, client servicing, mission delivery, and practice management. Before founding Eden, Calvin was Vice-President of Business and Strategy Development at the Singapore Exchange (SGX), and Business Group Director leading the Singapore office of a London-listed global consulting firm. He is Eden's Practice Lead for the Financial Services sector.
Calvin specializes in the areas of growth and competitive strategy, innovation scouting and development, product launch and market entry, M&A and partnerships, scenario planning, and war gaming. He has advised over a hundred Fortune 500 clients in more than 20 countries, including prestigious organizations such as 3M, Canon, Coca-Cola, Covidien, Cummins, DBS Bank, DesignSingapore Council, DHL, Disney, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IDA, International Enterprise Singapore, Intel, General Electric, MobileOne, MasterCard, Medtronic, The Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Arts, the Ministry of Social and Family Development, the National Youth Council, Nikkei, Nokia, the Land Transport Authority, the Public Service Division, Reed Elsevier, Roche, Samsung, SKF, Spring Singapore, StarHub, Standard Chartered Bank, the Singapore Tourism Board, Singapore Workforce Development Agency, TNT, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, and VISA.
He has been published in business titles such as Asian Banking & Finance, Asian Intellectual Property, Asia Pacific Biotech News, BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, the Star, the Straits Times, the Singapore Business Review, Today, and the Wall Street Journal.
Calvin has also been invited to address international conferences such as the ASEAN Social Entrepreneurship Forum, the Asia-Pacific CFO Summit, Biomedical Business Conference (NUS & the Harvard Club of Singapore), Education Innovation, Institutional Investors APAC Summit, the International Congress of Applied Psychology, Managing Distributors (Singapore Business Federation), the NUS-IdEA Enterprise Exchange Series, Prepaid Mobile Asia, Private Healthcare Asia (Thailand), the Regional CEO & CIO Summit, TEDx, and UNICEF Fundraising Forum (Athens).
He has served as a Judge and Mentor at the President's Challenge Social Enterprise Award, the Youth Social Enterprise Programme Grant Committee, The DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia, The Grameen Creative Lab, the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, Social Innovation Camp Asia, Start-up@Singapore, and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business Global New Venture Challenge.
Calvin is an Associate Lecturer in Strategy and Organization with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, an iAdvisor with IE Singapore, an Executive Advisor at NUS Enterprise, and a Board Member of Conjunct Consulting, BioFourmis, and Rotary Club. Calvin was recognised as a NetImpact Change-maker in 2014 and inducted into the International Who's Who of Professionals in 2009. Calvin graduated from the National University of Singapore majoring in Psychology and Political Science, and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Suvir Varma, MBA '96 (Speaker)
Senior Advisor, Bain & Company
Suvir Varma is a Senior Advisor to Bain & Company's Global Private Equity business, a role he took on in October of 2018. Until recently, he was a Senior Partner at Bain (2002-2018).
At Bain, he managed the firms Asia Pacific Financial Investor advisory business from 2010 to 2018, where he created a scale and market-leading investment advisory business across APAC.
Mr. Varma has worked extensively with leading Global and Asia-based financial investors to help them realize value across the investment value chain?from asset allocation and overall fund strategy to industry sector scans, commercial DD and portfolio company value enhancement across a range of industries and countries.
Beyond Bain, Mr. Varma is an Advisor and Board Member at several organizations across Asia and Europe.
Mr. Varma is active in the SE Asia Venture Capital and Private Equity community and works with a number of bodies focused on advancing the investment industry in Asia. He has authored many reports and articles on investing in Asia and speaks regularly at PE/M&A conferences across the APAC region.
Prior to joining Bain 17 years ago, Mr. Varma worked at A.T. Kearney as a Principal (Head of Strategy Practice in SE Asia) and started his career with stints in investing banking in the US and in Hong Kong.
Mr. Varma holds an MBA from Chicago Booth and a BSc in Business Administration from Babson College.
He is a Singapore Citizen and has lived with his family in Singapore since 1996. He grew up in India, Australia, Indonesia and Hong Kong, before studying and working in the US and then settling in Singapore.