Ramesh K.S. Rao is the McDermott Centennial Professor of Banking and Finance at the McCombs School of Business. His research interests include asset pricing, informational asymmetry, and the interface between finance and both marketing and operations management.

Dr. Rao has published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Marketing, among others. He is the author of Financial Management: Concepts and Applications, 3rd ed., Fundamentals of Financial Management, and A Theory of the Firm’s Cost of Capital (with E. Stevens). His book (with V. Agrawal) titled Corporate Financial Decisions Under Informational Asymmetry is forthcoming in 2015. He has received the Outstanding Professor Award, the Joe Beasley Award, the Jack G. Taylor Teaching Excellence Award, Outstanding Professor Award in the Executive MBA Program, the Excellence in Education Award and the Regents Award at The University of Texas. He also served as Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Director of the Texas MBA Program from 1997-1999.

In addition to his academic background, Dr. Rao has had extensive consulting experience in the areas of bankruptcy, corporate restructuring, corporate valuation corporate litigation and executive education. He has testified as expert in the American Express vs. Visa et al. case and was appointed the sole valuation expert in the bankruptcy restructuring of First City Corporation. His clients include the Federal Home Loan Banks, Intel Corporation, Burlington Northern, Deutsche Bank and Fidelity Investments. He has served on the Boards of Directors of companies and has testified as an expert witness in the Federal Bankruptcy Courts. In addition to conducting seminars for IBM, Arthur Young, Chase Banks, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Phillips Petroleum, and Halliburton, Dr. Rao has participated in several executive development programs in the U.S. and abroad.