Lecture Recording
Biography
Kern was appointed in 2011 to a university professorship in international and European financial law and regulation at the University of Zurich. He teaches courses in international financial law, corporate law, European Union economic law, and common law. He also is a part-time professor of international and European banking and financial law at the European University Institute Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence, Italy.
Alexander is founding co-director of the Oxford Bank Governance Programme at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School, where he teaches financial regulation and governance to senior financial professionals and bank board members. He has directed executive education programs for major financial institutions through the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, served as academic program director for the Barclays Compliance Academy, and lectured for the Bank of England’s training program for regulators. In 2024, he was elected director of the University of Zurich’s Competence Center of Sustainability, an interdisciplinary research hub on climate finance and other areas of environmental and social sustainability. He is also founding director of the Research Network of Sustainable Finance and director of the Society of Commercial and Financial Law.
His research has been widely published in leading journals including the European Law Review, the European Company and Financial Law Review, the European Business Law Journal, Cambridge Law Journal, Journal of International Economic Law, Virginia Journal of International Law, and International Company and Commercial Law Review, among other distinguished journals. He is the author of "Principles of Banking Regulation" (Cambridge University Press, 2019), co-author of "Global Governance of Financial Systems" (Oxford University Press, 2006), and "Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy" (Palgrave, 2009). Most recently, he served as lead editor of the “Cambridge Handbook of EU Sustainable Finance: Regulation, Supervision and Governance” (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
Kern earned a bachelor's degree with honors in history, economics and government from Cornell University. He holds a Master of Studies in modern European history from the University of Oxford and completed law and international relations degrees at the University of Cambridge, graduating with honors and distinction. He was an FA Mann Scholar at the University of London, where he earned a Ph.D. in law. He speaks German fluently and has intermediate proficiency in Russian.
