Professor Janette Rutterford

Professional biography

Janette's research has centred around corporate finance, investment management, personal finance and the history of finance, investment and saving. She has written a number of texts, notably Corporate Finance & Capital Markets, Financial Strategy, and three editions of An Introduction to Stock Exchange Investment.  Her current work centres round portfolio diversification and the role of investment trusts; designing and evaluating personal financial education; the attitude of women to money; and the role of financial institutions in influencing  social mobility.

Janette's academic papers are in the field of performance measurement, equity valuation, pension funds, women and investment, and the history of investment and saving. She was involved in a major ESRC research grant which investigated women's wealth and investment from 1870 to 1930 completed in 2009. Her paper on the history of equity valuation in 2004 was awarded the Basil Yamey prize for the best published paper in Accounting, Business and Financial History in that year. She was co-editor with Professor Josephine Maltby of York University and Professor Anne Laurence of the Open University of a 2009 edited text: Women and their Money, 1700 to 1950 and, with David Green, Josephine Maltby, and Alastair Owens, of a 2011 OUP edited text: Men, Women and Money: Perspectives on Gender, Wealth and Investment 1850-1930. 

Janette's current research is on individual investors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the origins of institutional fund management, and the role of gender in investment decision making both today and in the past.

Janette has been responsible for the creation of a number of key finance courses in the Business School, notably the Investment and Portfolio Management module for the Masters in Finance, as well as the MBA Financial strategy (B821 and BB831) courses, and the undergraduate courses You and your Money: Personal Finance in Context (DB123) and Personal Finance in an Uncertain World (DB234).

Janette has also been involved in the development of three MOOCs, Managing My Money, Managing My Investments, and Managing My Investment Journey. She has contributed to the Open2.net blog accompanying the Money Programme - see her views on getting rich in a recession, the cost of being super-rich, the rise of private equity and the cost of divorce.  She has a blog on WordPress and a Twitter account. She is also a regular contributor on OpenLearn.

Janette is on the editorial board of Accounting History Review and on the Ciommittee of the Association of Business Historians.  She acts as referee for a number of journals, in particular , Business History Review, Economic History Review and Business History. 

Until 2009, Janette was a non-executive member of the Strategic Investment Board of the Lord Chancellor's Office of the UK, responsible for monitoring investment of £5bn of investment funds on behalf of individuals.  She has also been a member of a number of government committees, including the Technology Foresight Committee for the financial services sector. 

Janette served as Centre Head for the Department of Accounting and Finance for more than ten years. She is also a key member of the Professoriate Committee for the Business School.  As the most senior member of the Deaprtment, Janette conitnues to act as mentor to more junior colleagues and has been influential in improving the quaility of research output of the Department.

Janette was appointed Research Professor of the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance in  2016 - 2018.  She was reponsible for a number of white and green papers, in paritcular, the role of trust in personal finance and also on the role of financial institutions in improving social mobility.  She headed a department of researchers on personal finance as well as contributing to personal financial tools, in particular free on-line courses (MOOCs).

 In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in recognition of her contribution to Social Sciences.

Janette was for six years on the Lord Chancellor's Strategic Investment Board. three years on the financial services Technology Foresight Committee, eight years a non-executive director of Scott Bader plc, a chemical company with a turnover of £100m., owned by its employees.  She was also a pension fund trustee of Scott Bader until 2009.  She has advised a number of pension funds and currently acts as an expert witness in investment-mismanagement cases.  More recenlty, her work as Research Director for the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance has meant working with government, regulators, charities, and financial institutions to improve financial education provision and effectiveness, and to work on social mobility. 

Janette appears frequently on television and radio as an investment expert, and writes for professional magazines and newspapers as well as in academic journals.She is currently writing a novel based on her experience of working in an investment bank in the 1970s. 

Janette is a visiting professor at the Basque University of Bilbao and ESCP-Europe in Paris. She has dual French/British nationality and divides her time between France and the UK.  Janette works with financial institutions across the globe in a number of ways:  acting as expert witness; advising on retail personal finance issues (e.g. questionnaires); advising on software retail products; devising risk return strategies; and analysiing the impact of gender on savings goals and investment advice.