Charles M. C. Lee

Charles M. C. Lee is Moghadam Family Professor, Emeritus, at the Graduate School of Business (GSB), Stanford University.

Professor Lee has published extensively in leading academic journals on topics that include behavioral finance, market microstructure, equity valuation, financial statement analysis, quantitative investing, and security market regulation.

From 2004 to July 2008, Dr. Lee was Managing Director at Barclays Global Investors (BGI; now Blackrock). As Global Head of Equity Research, he led the firm’s world-wide active equity research team and was Co-Head of its North American active equity business. During his tenure, BGI had over $300 billion in active equity asset under management. He joined Stanford GSB as Visiting Professor in July 2008 while continuing to serve as an exclusive senior consultant to BGI, and became a full-time faculty member in July 2009.

As an academic, Dr. Lee has received numerous honors, including the Notable Contribution to Accounting Literature Prize, as well as twelve school-wide or national-level Teaching Excellence Awards.  He has been the Presidential Scholar of the AAA and has received the Stanford University Asian American Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievements and Service to the University and to the Asian American Community.  Recently, he was Plenary Panel Speaker at the 2024 FARS Mid-year Conference; the Keynote Speaker at the 2023 HARC Research Conference; the Harry Lyman Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor, McMaster University, 2021; and recipient of the Best Paper Award, AAA Spark Conference, Western Regional, 2021.

Professor Lee is a former member of the Stanford University Advisory Board (UAB), and has served as Editor or Associate Editor of many academic journals, including: The Accounting Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science (Finance), and the Financial Analysts Journal. His research has also been featured in popular media outlets such as: the Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio (NPR), the LA Times, Business Week, CNBC, Forbes, Barron’s, Worth, Smart Money, and Institutional Investors.

Professor Lee received his BMath from the University of Waterloo (1981), and his MBA (1989) and PhD (1990) from Cornell University. He has been a faculty member at the Michigan Business School (1990-95) and the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University (1996-2004). From 1995-96 he was Visiting Economist at the New York Stock Exchange. At Cornell he held the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professorship in Management and was Director of the Parker Center for Investment Research.

Prior to entering academic life, he spent five years in public accounting, the last three in the National Research Department of KPMG, Toronto, Canada. He holds a Certificate in Biblical Studies from Ontario Theological Seminary, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.