Dr Sandeep Rao is an Associate Professor of Finance and the Programme Chair of the MSc in Finance at the DCU Business School. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investments and has served as the AE of Review of Accounting and Finance, and Journal of Risk Finance. Dr Rao is also a member of the American Finance Association (AFA), Financial Management Association (FMA), Irish Academy of Finance (IAF) and The Indian Econometric Society (TIES).

Dr Rao’s research focuses on Corporate Finance and Sustainable Finance, with a special emphasis on Climate Change. He has contributed to top ABS-ranked journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, The British Journal of Management, Annals of Operations Research, Economics Letters, Energy Economics, and Research in International Business and Finance. His expertise extends to teaching Corporate Finance and Sustainable Finance at DCU Business School, and he has delivered lectures at various international B-Schools, including DHBW (Germany), KEDGE (France), University of Birmingham (UK-Singapore), among others.

He is the founding Member of the International Finance Research Collaborative (iFRC), a dynamic group of finance academic networks dedicated to advancing knowledge and driving impactful research in finance. He is also an active member of international research centres such as the DCU Institute for Research in Business & Society, the DCU Institute for Climate and Society, Sustainable Financial Innovation Centre (SFiC, UK), the National Centre for Family Business (NCFB), and the Ireland India Institute at DCU.

Earlier, Dr Rao was the founder and CEO of two technology companies in India. Under his leadership, the companies provided several IT solutions, including PLM, ERP, fuel management systems and RFID technology integration into social media branding. He was also an award-winning market analyst at Thomson Reuters in the mergers and acquisitions department and a sub-broker of the stock broking firm Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd in India. He holds a PhD in Accounting and Finance from the triple-accredited University of Strathclyde and is a UK Commonwealth Alumni. Additionally, he has an MSc in International Securities and Investment Banking from the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, UK, and an MBA from Visveswaraiah Technological University, India.