Dr. Kara Tan Bhala
Education
PhD (Philosophy) University of Kansas
MA (Philosophy) University of Kansas
MA (Liberal Studies) New York University
MPhil (Management Studies) Oxford University
BS (Systems and Management) City, University of London
Dr. Kara Tan Bhala has a rare combination of professional training and extensive experience in both global finance and moral philosophy. She has over twenty-three years of experience in global finance, much of which was gained through working on Wall Street. She has been a sell-side equity analyst, a sell-side equity sales person, a buy-side equity analyst, and a portfolio manager. From 1992-2001, Dr. Tan Bhala was a Managing Director of Merrill Lynch and the Senior Portfolio Manager of the Merrill Lynch Dragon Fund and Emerging Tigers Fund. At its height, the Merrill Lynch Dragon Fund was the second largest Asian ex-Japan mutual fund in the world, with assets over $1 billion. Before running the Dragon Fund and Emerging Tigers Funds, Dr. Tan Bhala was a portfolio manager with Fiduciary Trust International in New York, where she ran the Far East equity portion of the United Nations Pension Fund. Dr. Tan Bhala ran her own international financial markets consulting firm and was a consultant for hedge and mutual funds based in Kansas City.She was a lecturer at the University of Kansas School of Business where she taught Global Finance and Ethics.
Dr. Tan Bhala was an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Regulation and Ethics at Queen Mary University of London.
Dr. Tan Bhala’s latest book Ethics in Finance: Case Studies from a Woman’s Life on Wall Street, captures the true stories of an immigrant Asian American woman’s journey through the top echelons of Wall Street finance, with enduring lessons about ethics from her 30 years of experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). The book has won five awards: bronze medal in the Business Ethics category of The Axiom Business Book Awards 2022 (US), winner in the International Book category of the Business Book Awards 2022 (UK), finalist in the International Book Awards in the Nonfiction Narrative category, silver medalist in the Business Ethics category of the Global Book Awards 2022 (US), and winner in the Business Education category of the Goody Business Book Awards 2022 (US).
Dr. Tan Bhala contributed a chapter, “The Philosophical Foundations of Financial Ethics” to Research Handbook on Law and Ethics in Finance and Banking (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019). She is the lead author of International Investment Management: Theory, Ethics and Practice published by Routledge in 2016 and a contributor of a chapter, “The Decline and Rise of Financial Ethics” to The Business of Ethics (Asian Institute of Finance, 2016). She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, The Far East Economic Review, and other prominent publications, and has been interviewed on Adam Smith’s Money World. Her published articles are in The Harvard International Review, The Journal of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, among others and has contributed to The Handbook of Portfolio Management.
Dr. Kara Tan Bhala is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a Member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs . In 2018 Dr. Tan Bhala was awarded the Transparency Prize by the Transparency Task Force for her help in navigating the finance industry towards a more transparent, competitive, and enlightened state. In 2017, she was named by Ingram’s Magazine as one of the “50 Kansas You Should Know.” Dr. Tan Bhala was formerly a Board Member of the Friends of Johnson County Disability Services, Kansas City, Kansas, a Trustee at Bishop Seabury Academy, Lawrence, Kansas , and a Treasurer on the Friends of the Lied Board, Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas.
Dr. Tan Bhala has lived and worked in London, Oxford, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City.