Per Olsson is a professor of accounting at ESMT Berlin and the recipient of many awards for outstanding teaching in MBA and master’s in management studies. He was the director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Auditing from 2015 to 2022. Prior to joining ESMT, Per Olsson was on the faculty of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Per received his PhD from Stockholm School of Economics. In this professorship, he will be supported by Hanna Setterberg, affiliated researcher at ESMT.  

Per Olsson has published a large number of research papers in financial accounting, especially in the capital markets area. He is a frequent speaker in academic and industry forums on matters related to earnings quality. He is a member of the European Accounting Association and the American Accounting Association, and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research. He is an associate editor of Accounting and Business Research and has served on the editorial boards of several top accounting journals.  

“For companies and CFOs today, it is no longer sufficient to focus only on financial performance when driving business decisions. In the future, CFOs and their financial organization have to be able to disclose business related impacts on the environment and society in a transparent way. This requires business know-how and an understanding of sustainability. With the new professorship in sustainable accounting, ESMT is combining both disciplines and training much-needed talent. I am convinced that they can successfully accelerate the climate-friendly transformation of the economy,” said Melanie Kreis, CFO, Deutsche Post DHL Group. 

Prof. Jörg Rocholl, president of ESMT, said, “Per Olsson is an excellent researcher and teacher and perfectly suited to advance the topic of sustainable accounting in research and in the classroom. We are delighted that Deutsche Post DHL Group is supporting us in such an important field, allowing us to increase our international business school’s ESG focus.”