Since 1999 Carol Alexander has been Professor of Risk Management and Director of Research at the ICMA Centre. Prior to this post, she held positions in both academia and financial institutions at: Gemente Universiteit in Amsterdam; UBS Phillips and Drew; The University of Sussex; Algorithmics Inc. and Nikko Global Holdings. Carol has a PhD in Algebraic Number Theory, an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics and a first class BSc in Mathematics with Experimental Psychology from Sussex University.

From 1986 - 1998 she lectured in Mathematics and Economics at Sussex University. From 1996 to 1998 she also worked part-time in the industry, as Academic Director of Algorithmics, a large international enterprise-wide risk management software company. Following this, she was Director of Nikko Global Holdings before returning to Academia in 1999. In addition to her Professorship at the ISMA centre, she is Honorary Professor at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania.

Carol is Chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Professional International Risk Management Association (PRMIA). In this capacity she has taken a leading role in setting standards for professional qualifications in financial risk management. As well as conceiving and editing the 3-volume Professional Risk Manager's Handbook she has developed both on-site and distance learning versions of training courses for the professional risk manager (PRM) global qualification. In recognition of this work Carol recently received the inaugural prize for standard setting from PRMIA, shared with Professor Robert Merton.

Carol's consultancy work has focussed on the design of software for risk management, portfolio optimization and trading. With nearly 15 years of experience in this area her experience includes designing: Market Value-at-Risk models, GARCH models, 'Advanced Measurement Approaches' to operational risk capital assessment, active ETF pricing and hedge fund strategy design.

Carol is a well-known figure in the areas of financial risk management and investment analysis and she has published numerous research papers in top international academic and professional journals. She is best known for having authored and edited many books on mathematics and finance, including the best-selling text books Market Models: A Practitioners Guide to Data Analysis (Wiley, 2001) and a series of four text books on Market Risk Analysis (Wiley, 2008). Her current research interests focus on volatility analysis, option pricing and hedging and financial econometrics.