For Assistant Professor Krisztina Buti, the field of
corporate finance is her natural habitat.
Her impressive academic background includes a Ph.D., a chartered
financial analyst, a master’s in economics and an MBA, while her experience
comes from over eight years in financial advisory positions.
A native Hungarian, Buti’s career in corporate finance began
with management positions at Creditanstalt Investment Bank and Concorde Aquila
Corporate Finance, a venture capital firm based in Budapest. She participated
in the privatization of formerly state-owned enterprises via private
placements, initial public offerings and seasoned offerings. “Corporations and banks needed capital injections
to become competitive,” Buti said. “The new owners brought managerial know-how,
technological expertise, and marketing skills. The stock market allowed
investors to profit from this growth.”
Buti would then shift
her career toward an academic role, in part, because of family. “Investment
banking is incredibly challenging,” Buti said. “You gain enormous experience,
but you work long hours under high pressure. I changed to a field where I can
use my expertise, but allow a life outside of work.”
She decided to take a position as senior lecturer at Central
European University, a premier academic institution in Europe. She was
responsible for coordinating the finance area and teaching courses for MBA students.
“I adopted a case study based approach,” she said. “Students appreciated the
depth of knowledge gained from analyzing problems from multiple angles.”
Inspired by the world of academia, Buti decided to pursue a
new challenge by enrolling in the financial economics Ph.D. program at the
University of Utah. She credits this
experience for gaining an invaluable understanding of theory and methodology
that allows her to conduct research. Her research focuses on corporate finance,
particularly major corporate transformations, like acquisitions and restructurings.
Buti’s recent papers examine how the market learns about a firm’s internal investment opportunities from the acquisition announcement and how market frictions influence the price response. She chose to come to Rady because of its excellent finance department, the emerging entrepreneurial environment and the tight-knit community.
“There is more opportunity for meaningful interaction in the
faculty and with the students,” she said. “I appreciate the opportunity to work
in such a dynamic department. Also, who
wouldn’t want to come to San Diego? This city is amazing.”
A Life of Finance was last modified: March 6th, 2019 by Matthew Wu