Management Practice Professor of Finance
Director and Co-founder of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF)
BCom (Queen’s University), MBA (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), MSc (LSE), PhD (University of Cambridge)
My research interests include the sociology of financial markets, trust, comparative institutionalism, innovation, and entrepreneurship. I’m an economic sociologist interested in understanding how and why channels and instruments of finance emerge outside the traditional system and how this impacts regulators, incumbent financial institutions and consumers. I previously had an international career as a professional investor.
I’m part of the Finance subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School, which focuses on the investment and financial decisions of firms and institutions.
Professional experience
Bob is an economic sociologist interested in understanding how and why channels and instruments of finance emerge outside the traditional financial system and how this impacts regulators, incumbent financial institutions and consumers. In addition to his role in the School, Bob is a member of the Steering Committee for the Cambridge Centre for Data-Driven Discovery (C2D3), an interdisciplinary research centre at Cambridge bringing together expertise from across academic departments and industry to drive research into the analysis, understanding, and use of big data.
Prior to pursuing his academic career in 2010, Bob had an international career as a professional investor, most recently as a Managing Director in the investment group of one of the largest privately-owned companies in the United States where he was responsible for a portfolio of European corporate debt and equity investments. He has held several board directorships and advisory roles with academic, governmental and commercial organisations over the course of both his academic and non-academic career.
News and insights
Programme news
New Venture Finance: elective for MBA and MFin career growth
We meet alumni from the MBA and Master of Finance (MFin) programmes and ask them how choosing the very popular elective, New Venture Finance, run by Robert Wardrop, Management Practice Professor of Finance, has helped them develop and grow their career in finance and the fintech sector.
Programme news
Robert Wardrop, alternative finance pioneer and MBA lecturer
Professor Robert Wardrop talks about why his elective ‘New Venture Finance’ is the most popular choice on the MBA programme and why when he co-founded the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) in 2015, it was the first of its kind in the world. This article is part of our MBA Teaching Spotlight series.…
Seven members of the Cambridge Judge faculty are awarded teaching prizes for excellence across the Business School's various programmes.
Media coverage
The Fintech Times | 4 April 2022
New initiative to advance suptech for financial supervisors and regulators in low-income countries
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School has announced the establishment of the Cambridge SupTech Lab, a new initiative that takes financial supervisors on a journey to shape the future of financial supervision accelerating the development of cutting-edge, globally scalable supervisory technology (suptech) applications.
Financial Times | 7 February 2022
Culture change, CLO training survey, school diversity
Dr Robert Wardrop, Faculty (Professor level) in Management Practice at Cambridge Judge Business School, responded to Andrew Hill’s management challenge. Andrew was asking to send him ‘any examples of cultural or structural change programmes gone wrong, and how you might put them right.’
Credit Collections & Rik Magazine | 26 November 2021
New study highlights progress in fintech regulation in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the Cambridge Judge Business School today published the report of findings from its “Fintech regulation in Sub-Saharan Africa” study, which provides one of the first overviews of the regulatory landscape in the region, assessing where sectoral and cross-sectoral regulatory frameworks have been established.