Faculty officer role(s):

Director of the Masters in Law and Finance

Biography

Thom Wetzer is Associate Professor of Law and Finance at the University of Oxford and the Founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. At Oxford, Thom is also the Co-Lead of the Oxford Martin Programme on Net Zero Regulation and Policy, Co-Lead (Law) at Oxford Net Zero, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, a member of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance, and Fellow of Linacre College. 

In his research, Thom examines how we can build more resilient financial systems, improve the governance of corporations, and tackle the climate crisis. His work combines traditional legal scholarship with financial, scientific, and empirical analysis, and has been published in Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change [1] [2], The Columbia Business Law ReviewThe Journal of Corporation Law, the Arizona Law Review, the Journal of Corporate Law Studies, and the Journal of Banking and Finance. Thom is also a co-editor of the ‘Handbook of Financial Stress Testing’ (Cambridge University Press, 2022). His research has featured in media around the world, including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, the BBC, CNNThe Washington Post, and The Guardian, and has been cited in leading scientific expert reports, including the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.

Thom actively collaborates with and advises governments, central banks, corporations, NGOs, and international institutions – including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme, and law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. In 2022 he was appointed to a two-year term as a member of the European Securities and Markets Authority's Consultative Working Group on Sustainable Finance. Thom is also a Director at the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative. He has taught at various universities around the world, including at Yale and Stanford. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Smith School's inaugural Teaching Excellence Award

Thom holds a DPhil (Clarendon Scholar) and an MSc in Law and Finance from the University of Oxford, and received both a BA(Hons) in Law and Economics and an LLB in Dutch Law from Utrecht University. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School, Yale University, and Berkeley Law School, and worked at the European Commission and Goldman Sachs. In 2014, Thom was recognised as a ‘Global Shaper’ by the World Economic Forum. 

Thom tweets about his work @ThomWetzer

 

Publications