Judith Walls

Chair for Sustainability Management and Director of the Institute for Economy and the Environment

University of St Gallen

Professor Judith Walls joined the University of St Gallen (HSG) in 2019 as Chair for Sustainability Management and Director of the Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ). She also serves as the Delegate (Associate Dean) of Responsibility and Sustainability for the HSG.

Prior to joining the HSG, Prof. Walls worked at Nanyang Business School (NTU Singapore) and the John Molson School of Business (Concordia University). Prof. Walls was an Alcoa Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Erb Institute for Sustainable Enterprise (University of Michigan after completing her PhD at the Lally School of Management (RPI). She also has an MBA in International Business with the NUS Business School (National University of Singapore) and an MSc in Wildlife, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health at the Edinburgh Medical School (University of Edinburgh).

Prof. Walls researches the intersection of business and environmental sustainability focusing on behavioural governance, or how the micro-foundational psychological underpinnings of (chief) executives and board members affect corporate sustainability performance. She also studies the microfoundations (emotions) of institutional process in contested industries; and, the biodiversity measurement and governance of industries that affect land use such as agri-commodities, mining, and trophy hunting. She has published in top journals and won prestigious research awards and grants. She serves as a guest editor for special issues in Organization Studies and Strategic Organization and the editorial board of several journals.

Prof. Walls has been/is in the leadership of the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) division at the Academy of Management (AOM), the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) and the scientific committee of the Group of Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN).

Prior to her academic career, Prof. Walls headed investor relations research, consulting, and business development departments at Thomson Financial (Thomson-Reuters) in Europe and Asia-Pacific. She has also worked at conservation NGOs in Namibia, Botswana, and Mongolia.