UC Business School

Heba is a lecturer and researcher in accounting, auditing, sustainability reporting, and stakeholder accountability in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research focuses on the quality and credibility of corporate financial and sustainability reporting and on how different stakeholders perceive, interpret, and use reported information. She holds a PhD in Accounting from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury.

A central strand of her work examines sustainability reporting and assurance, including the role of assurance in strengthening the credibility of corporate disclosures and supporting stakeholder trust. Her research also explores climate-related disclosure, financial auditing, reporting regulation, and the extent to which reporting and assurance practices promote meaningful organisational accountability rather than primarily serving managerial or reputational purposes.

Heba primarily uses qualitative research methodologies, including interviews, document analysis, and interpretive approaches. Her work contributes to debates on corporate accountability, reporting credibility, stakeholder engagement, sustainability governance, and the role of accounting and assurance in supporting transparent and accountable organisational decision-making.

My research is aimed at understanding how tourism can be a tool for sustainable development. Applying critical and community-engaged approaches, I explore how social entrepreneurship can make tourism an equitable and sustainable form of livelihood for local communities and subsequently create positive community change. Advocating for sustainable consumption in tourism, my research also examines the environmentally responsible behaviours of tourists. My other research interests include community development, geotourism and geopark development, and critical tourism studies. I serve as Research Notes Editor for Tourism in Marine Environments, Editorial Board Member for Tourism Management Perspectives, and Review Editor for Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism. Apart from academic research, I have been actively involved in practitioner-based research for tourism planning consultancy projects in the Philippines and New Zealand.

Jean-Grégoire Bernard's teaching and research focus on issues pertaining to digital innovation, digital platforms, and online networks. His recent work on these topics draws on computational social sciences methods, drawing on a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches.  He obtained a PhD in Management from Queen's University (Canada). 

His research has been published in Social Media+Society, and in the ACM CHI and ICIS conference proceedings, among other outlets.  He has served as Associate Editor of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems and has been Associate Editor for several tracks at the International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS) since 2012. He has been a reviewer for journals such as the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, the Journal of Management Information Systems, and the Database for Advances in Information Systems, among others. He was nominated as 2nd runner-up for Best Associate Editor at ICIS 2018 and won an outstanding reviewer award at ICIS 2017-2019 and ECIS 2026. He is a member of the CTO and TIM divisions of the Academy of Management. 

He was previously the founding Director of the Master of Professional Business Analysis at the Victoria University of Wellington, having led the program's design and successful growth.  He also lectured at HEC Montréal and served as project manager at CIRANO, a Montréal-based academic research centre, for which he led a $1.2 million research project on risk management. 

Elsamari Botha is an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury, where she previously served as Director of the MBA and Executive Education Programmes. Her research and practice focus on AI governance, implementation, and responsible digital transformation, bridging technical systems with organisational strategy and human-centric change.

She has co-authored several studies on AI adoption, including the AI Implementation Compass for managing socio-technical change in AI implementations, the CARE Framework for human-centric governance of generative AI, and the GenAI Prompt Protocol for human–AI knowledge co-construction. Her earlier work on the AI-enabled Retail Value Chain mapped one of the first conceptual frameworks for AI integration across value-chain activities.

Beyond academia, Elsamari is a recognised voice in AI strategy and governance, is frequently invited to speak with boards and senior leaders on the responsible adoption of AI, and has been recognised by LinkedIn as a Top Voice in both Higher Education and Consulting. With a PhD in Industrial Economics and Management from KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm), Elsamari combines 15 years of consulting experience with academic leadership.

I focus on channelling Information Systems to promote healthier lives for individuals, families, and communities. I am committed to integrating technology, health, and analytics to improve lives and foster sustainable behaviours in diverse communities.

My work centres on digital health and sustainability, particularly in addressing cardiovascular disease and diabetes. I explore innovative solutions for individual and family well-being through design science research.

I am also passionate about data and business analytics, especially in creating systems that support personal decision-making and lifestyle transformation. My research is supported by several health grants, and I hold an honorary research fellowship in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland.

I am a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder and a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). I have been the Principal Contact of the CFA Institute University Affiliation Program at the University of Canterbury (UC) since 2014. In my role, I process applications and offer scholarships to UC students to take the CFA exams, and ensure that our two affiliated programs - Bachelor of Commerce with a Major in Finance and Master of Financial Analysis - are closely aligned with the CFA Program curriculum. Being interested in financial education and giving back to the profession, I have been doing various volunteer work relating to the CFA Program, CFA Institute Research Challenge (Asia-Pacific and Western U.S. rounds), practice analysis, and professional misconduct monitoring for the CFA Institute. I was the organiser/ academic adviser and led UC student team to the top three performers in the national CFA Institute Research Challenge for a number of years.

I have been teaching at both undergraduate level (Fixed Income Securities, Investments) and postgraduate level (Equity Valuation, Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, Credit Risk Management, Sustainable Finance). My teaching covers challenging topics included in the CFA Program curriculum, and helps students be well-prepared to take the CFA exams which have low pass rates. I have also led students to conduct research projects on applied finance topics, including those sponsored by Christchurch-based investment bank Northington Partners and financial advisory firm Bradley Nuttall (renamed Cambridge Partners), each resulted in a refereed publication. My students and Teaching/ Reseach Assistants have been offered analyst roles at financial institutions in Australia and New Zealand, and recently, the central government agency New Zealand Treasury.

My research portfolio includes multi-disciplinary studies on culture, credit risk, portfolio management, and sustainability. My co-authored research has been published in highly respected journals, for example, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Environmental Management. Since 2020, I have been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Accounting Research (Quartile 1/ Scimago) published by Emerald. I am also an Advisory Board member of the project “Resilient Investment for Sustainable Environments” (RISE-IN), a Consortium of 26 parties including the UC and Christchurch City Council working under the Horizon Europe Grant # 101214441 with an aim to narrowing the gap between environmental resilience and financial viability. 

Research interests include international finance, behavioural finance, corporate finance, financial development and applied econometrics.

Peni is the Head of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems and is currently an Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Canterbury. Born in Tonga, Peni grew up in Sopu o Taufa'ahau and attended Mangaia Primary School, Tonga High School, and completed further studies in New Zealand, Fiji and Australia. 

He has been in the corporate sector for nearly ten years, but is now working in academia. Peni has worked in Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand.

He loves tennis, singing, sociology, preparing financial reports and accounting research. Peni was also recently introduced to golf and regrets not trying it sooner.

Peni completed his PhD from the Australian National University's Research School of Accounting in 2014.