Biography

Laurie Simon Hodrick is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the A. Barton Hepburn Professor Emerita of Economics in the Faculty of Business at Columbia Business School. 

Professor Hodrick is known for her ground-breaking research on corporate financial decisions, with a particular interest in corporate cash holdings and capital allocation, including share repurchases and dividends, takeovers, and equity offerings. In recognition, she has been awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Smith Breeden Prize for Distinguished Paper in the Journal of Finance, the Western Finance Association's Trefftzs Award, a Roger F. Murray Award for Excellence from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, and numerous research grants. Her work has been published in such acclaimed journals as the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Management Science among others. She has served as a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford, and she was selected as one of "Forty under Forty" by Crain's Chicago Business. 

Professor Hodrick has also received many awards for teaching excellence, including the Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. She has received the Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom at Columbia Business School three times and has been named the most popular professor at Columbia Business School by Business Week. Prior to joining the Columbia Business School faculty in 1996, Professor Hodrick was a professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where she was recipient of the Teacher of the Year award.

Professor Hodrick was a Visiting Professor of Law and Rock Center for Corporate Governance Fellow at Stanford Law School from 2015-2021. She has also taught at the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 Stanford Director’s College and at the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Stanford Rock Center Program for Journalists: A Primer in Corporate Governance. 

Professor Hodrick serves as an independent director for Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), the pioneer of streaming to the TV, as chair of the audit committee, for which she is designated as an audit committee financial expert. She serves as an independent director for SYNNEX (NYSE:SNX), a Fortune #117 (fiscal 2020 revenue $24.7B) IT distribution, systems design, and integration services company, as a member of the audit committee, for which she is designated as an audit committee financial expert. She also serves as an independent director for PGIM Funds, the $160 billion retail investments business of PGIM, the global investment management business of US-based Prudential Financial, Inc., as a member of the audit and investment committees. 

Professor Hodrick served as an independent director from 2018-2020 for Kabbage, a private global financial services, technology and data platform serving small businesses, as a member of the compensation committee, until Kabbage was acquired by American Express (NYSE:AXP) in October 2020. She served as an independent director for Corporate Capital Trust (NYSE:CCT) from 2017-2018, a business development company advised by FS/KKR Advisor focused on making originated, senior secured loans to middle market companies, which went public in November 2017. She chaired the independent director committee, overseeing the acquisition by FS Investment Corporation (NYSE:FSIC) which closed in December 2018. She was a member of the audit committee, for which she was designated as an audit committee financial expert, as well as a member of the Nominating and Governance Committee. She served as an independent director/trustee for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers from 1999-2006, for which she was designated as an audit committee financial expert and served on all standing committees.

Professor Hodrick served as the Founding Director of the Program for Financial Studies at Columbia Business School from 2010-2015. She has also served as Treasurer and Finance Chair of a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. 

Professor Hodrick was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank from 2006-2008, where she was Global Head of Alternative Investment Strategies. She ran a trading strategy for Deutsche Bank Alternative Trading from 2008-2009. 

Professor Hodrick received a BA in Economics, summa cum laude, from Duke University and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Memberships & Affiliations