Bob Officer AM
Citation
Robert (Bob) Officer’s broad and deep contribution to accounting and finance encompasses a multitude of inter-disciplinary areas including financial accounting, valuation and investment proposals, takeovers, anti-trust and international and corporate finance and taxation. Bob has worked in two worlds - he is a highly respected scholar and a much sought after consultant and board and committee member. Bob Officer graduated Bachelor of Agricultural Science from the University of Melbourne, Master of Agricultural Economics from the University of New England and MBA at the University of Chicago. He then completed doctoral studies at Chicago under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Professor Eugene Fama. Bob’s academic career from 1986 to 2002 included periods at Monash, Stanford, the Wharton School and Rochester, culminating in his 16-year term as Deputy Director and Chair of Finance at the Melbourne Business School. In his long academic career Bob was instrumental in initiating significant changes in the way accounting and finance were taught and researched within universities by showing how rigorous theory and empirical research could inform understanding and reasoning of the ways in which financial markets worked, the impacts of accounting numbers and regulations on markets, and the incentives that motivated organisations to act and publish financial performance. As a senior academic in the mid-1980s Bob Officer made an important contribution to the design of the imputation tax and credit system that is still in place today. An extensive array of publications in scholarly and professional journals supports this legacy. Bob Officer served as editor of Accounting and Finance 1977 to 1985, was associate editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance 1988 to 2003 and a member of the editorial board of ABACUS from 1989 to 2006. From 1986 to 1987 he was president of the Accounting Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ). In 2003 Bob moved into the private sector where he developed an extensive list of advisory and consultancy activities and has been variously chair and / or member of myriad organisations in the private and public sectors. Bob Officer chaired the Victorian Commission of Audit 1992 – 1993 and the National Commission of Audit 1996 and has appeared as an expert witness on many occasions. In 1988 Bob Officer was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and in 1991 was awarded honorary life membership of the AAANZ. In 2003 he was a recipient of the Centenary Medal, granted the title professor emeritus by the University of Melbourne and appointed as an honorary professor by the University of Queensland. In 2012 Bob was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to business and education and in 2018 he received a Doctorate of Commerce honoris causa from the University of Melbourne.