I am Senior Lecturer in Banking at Manchester Business School and participate in Theme 1 research activities at CRESC.   During the first five-year of CRESC I was involved in research on financialization, executive pay, household financial portfolios, democratization of finance and financial conglomerates.  The published work on re-invented banks and shareholder value-driven bank business models with my research colleagues at CRESC engaged with the issues that later have become topical with the banking crisis.  I currently work with my colleagues to develop these themes to contribute to the academic and policy debates on banking reforms.  Our work on banking reform emphasizes the importance of politics of finance as opposed to the technical fixes as key to building a sound and socially useful banking.  Financial innovation, financial literacy, hedge funds and alternative finance are other areas of research interest.