Gbenga Ibikunle

Ibikunle is from Abeokuta.[1] He became interested in economics as a child, and spent his spare time reading The Economist.[1] His father worked in the Nigeria Customs Service in Lagos, and his mother encouraged him to read whilst she looked after his sister.[1] As a high achieving student in the Nigerian school system, Ibikunle was encouraged to pursue the sciences, and eventually studied food technology at the Yaba College of Technology.[1] He started working in management, and was made a Senior Manager at Mega Chicken, a fast-food company that was gaining traction in Nigeria. In the first year of his management, the company turnover was over £1m.[1] The 2008 financial crisis motivated Ibikunle to study abroad, and he moved to the University of East Anglia to complete a Master of Business Administration.[2] He then completed a doctorate on market microstructure.[1] His doctoral research considered the financial market surrounding European Union Emissions Trading System.[3] He looked to understand the motivations of economic agents. He became interested in the interplay between research and policy, and his research was well received by European officials, including Connie Hedegaard.[2]

Ibikunle was appointed to the faculty at the University of Edinburgh, where he was made a professor and Chair of Finance in 2020.[2] Ibikunle studies the microstructure of financial markets. He studies how the microstructure of markets evolves under technological and policy-based innovation. He spent 2016 as a visiting researcher at the Financial Conduct Authority.[4][5] In 2018, he was made Director of Industry, Economy and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.[1] In 2023, he was made co-director of the NatWest–Edinburgh centre or Purpose-Driven Innovation in Banking.[6]

• Director of Industry, Economy and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute[1]
• Member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council[7][8]

• Ibikunle, Gbenga; Steffen, Tom (2015-09-07). "European Green Mutual Fund Performance: A Comparative Analysis with their Conventional and Black Peers". Journal of Business Ethics. 145 (2): 337–355. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2850-7. ISSN 0167-4544.
• Aguirre, Mariana; Ibikunle, Gbenga (2014-06-01). "Determinants of renewable energy growth: A global sample analysis". Energy Policy. 69: 374–384. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2014.02.036. ISSN 0301-4215.
• Ibikunle, Gbenga; Gregoriou, Andros; Hoepner, Andreas G.F.; Rhodes, Mark (December 2016). "Liquidity and market efficiency in the world's largest carbon market". The British Accounting Review. 48 (4): 431–447. doi:10.1016/j.bar.2015.11.001. ISSN 0890-8389.
• Ibikunl, Gbenga; Gregoriou, Andros (2018). Carbon Markets: Microstructure, Pricing and Policy (1 ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-72847-6.