Tian Xuan takes office as Dean of Peking University Guanghua School of Management, former Vice Dean of Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance

On April 3, a reporter from The Paper learned from relevant parties that Tian Xuan, a Boya Distinguished Chair Professor of Peking University, has taken up the post of Dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.

Media reports in January this year showed that Tian Xuan had transferred from the Tsinghua University School of Finance for the Five Dao Kous to Peking University, serving as a Boya Distinguished Chair Professor.

Tian Xuan graduated from Peking University in 2001, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in economics. In 2003, he obtained a master’s degree in economics from the University of Washington in the United States. In 2008, he obtained a Ph.D. in finance from Boston College in the United States.

After graduation, from 2008 to 2016, Tian Xuan taught at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in the United States, and in 2014 he formally obtained a tenured professorship at Indiana University.

In 2014, Tian Xuan returned to China and took a position at the Tsinghua University School of Finance for the Five Dao Kous, serving as a Chair Professor of Finance and a doctoral supervisor, and starting in 2018 he became the school’s vice dean. From 2021 to 2024, Tian Xuan served as vice dean of the National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University, and starting in 2024 he was promoted to dean.

Tian Xuan is a delegate to the 14th National People’s Congress and a Distinguished Chair Professor of the Ministry of Education’s “Changjiang Scholars” program. He has also served as a member of the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s Listed Company Mergers and Acquisitions Restructuring Committee, a member of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s first ChiNext Listing Committee, a member of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s first ChiNext Mergers and Acquisitions Restructuring Committee, and in other roles.

Publicly available information shows that Tian Xuan has devoted himself to the field of finance for many years. His main research areas include corporate finance, venture capital, corporate innovation, and mergers and acquisitions restructuring. He has hosted major programs as well as the National Natural Science Foundation of China Distinguished Young Scholar program (and received follow-on funding under the first batch). His research results have been published multiple times in top international and domestic academic journals. He has been continuously selected for the Clarivate Analytics “Highly Cited Scientists—Global” list, the Stanford Global “Top 2% Scientists by Career Influence” and “Top 2% Scientists by Annual Influence” rankings, and Elsevier’s “Highly Cited Chinese Scholars” list.

During this year’s National Two Sessions, Tian Xuan mentioned in an exclusive interview with a reporter from The Paper that from the “14th Five-Year Plan” to the “15th Five-Year Plan,” the relationship between science and technology and finance has undergone a fundamental change. Previously, we emphasized financial technology more, while in the building of a financial power and the “15th Five-Year Plan,” the focus has shifted to technology finance. The core of financial technology is finance: it emphasizes using technological approaches such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain to empower finance, support innovation in financial institutions, improve operational efficiency, and serve long-tail customers; in essence, it is a technology-enabled mode of serving the financial industry. The core of technology finance, however, turns to technology: it emphasizes empowering technology innovation throughout the entire process with financial tools, financial institutions, and financial markets; in essence, it is a service-oriented orientation of financial resources toward the technology sector. Looking ahead to the next five years of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” it is necessary to further play the role of finance, focusing on supporting technological innovation—especially by promoting deep integration between technological innovation and industrial innovation—so as to truly achieve “begins with technology, achieved through finance, and flourishes with industry,” and to build a virtuous cycle and an iron-triangle closed loop among technology, finance, and industry.

Before Tian Xuan took up the post, the Dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University was Liu Qiao. He holds a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics for economics from Renmin University of China, a master’s degree in international finance from the International Finance Institute of the People’s Bank of China, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Liu Qiao previously worked at McKinsey & Company and has also taught at The University of Hong Kong, where he obtained a tenured professorship. He joined the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University as a professor in 2010 and was promoted to dean in 2017.

(Source: The Paper)