CV 

Kern was appointed in 2011 to the University Professorship in International and European Financial Law and Regulation at the University of Zurich where he teaches International Financial Law, Principles of Corporate Law, European Union Economic Law and Principles of Common Law. In 2022, he was appointed part-time Professor of International and European Banking and Financial Law at the European University Institute Robert Shuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence, Italy. Previously, he held a joint appointment as Professor of Law and Finance at the Department of Economics and School of Law of Queen Mary, University of London (2008-12).  Previously Kern was Lecturer in Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation at the University of Cambridge Centre of Financial Analysis and Policy and was Supervisor in Economics and Law at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge (2006-08).  He was also Senior Lecturer in Law (tenured – equivalent to Associate Professor of Law) at the University of Warwick School of Law (2003-06).  Upon completing his PhD, he was a Ford Foundation Research Fellow in International Financial Regulation at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge (1998-2001) and was later an Isaac Newton Trust Senior Research Fellow in Financial Regulation at the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy, University of Cambridge (2001-03) and a Lecturer in International Political Economy at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge. 

Kern is also a Fellow in Law and Finance at the University of Cambridge Queens’ College where he has served as Director of Studies and is also a Fellow at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School where he teaches the Principles of Financial Regulation course. He has taught executive education courses for senior managers and board members of banks and other financial institutions since 2006 at the Cambridge Judge Business School and was Academic Programme Director (2016-23) for bank governance and regulation at the Barclays Compliance Academy at the Judge Business School.   

Kern is Founding Co-Director of the Oxford Bank Governance Programme (OBGP) at the University of Oxford Said Business School where he teaches principles of financial regulation and bank governance strategies to senior financial professionals and bank board members.  Kern also has lectured on the governance of financial institutions and the legal aspects of financial market regulation and financial technology for the Bank of England’s training program for regulators.

He was elected in 2024 Director of the University of Zurich Competence Center of Sustainability: Finance, Law, Science and Humanities. The CCF is one of a few high level research centers at the University of Zurich conducting inter-disciplinary research on climate finance issues and other areas of environmental and social sustainability. https://www.sustainablefinance.uzh.ch/en/about/researchers.html

His articles and commentary have been published in the European Law Review, the European Company and Financial Law Review, the European Business Law Journal, Cambridge Law Journal, Journal of International Economic Law, and Virginia Journal of International Law, International Company and Commercial Law Review, among other distinguished journals. He is also the author of the monograph, Principles of Banking Regulation (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 2019) https://www.cambridge.org/ch/universitypress/subjects/economics/finance/principles-banking-regulation?format=PB#bookPeople Global Governance of Financial Systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) (co-author) https://global.oup.com/academic/product/global-governance-of-financial-systems-9780195166989?cc=ch&lang=en& and Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy (Macmillan/Palgrave, 2009) https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Sanctions-Law-Public-Policy/dp/0230525555 among other books. Most recently, he is the lead editor of the Cambridge Handbook of EU Sustainable Finance: Regulation, Supervision and Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025) https://www.cambridge.org/ch/universitypress/subjects/law/corporate-law/cambridge-handbook-eu-sustainable-finance-regulation-supervision-and-governance?format=HB&isbn=9781009483940

He is also the Founding Director of the Research Network of Sustainable Finance. https://www.ius.uzh.ch/en/staff/professorships/alphabetical/alexander/researchprojects/SUSFIN.html He is also Director of the Society of Commercial and Financial Law.

Kern is a graduate of the University of Cambridge where he studied law (Arts Bachelor with Honours) and international relations (Master of Philosophy with Distinction). He was a FA Mann Scholar at the University of London (PhD in Law) and graduated from Cornell University with a Arts Bachelor in History, Economics and Government (Honors) and from the University of Oxford with a Masters of Studies Degree in Modern European History. He speaks German (C2) and Russian (B1).

Diversity and Inclusiveness

Kern is proud of his record supporting diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in research and teaching.  An important part of my research has focused on how financial regulation and central bank policy instruments can be used to support environmental sustainability and social inclusiveness. Specifically, I have conducted empirical research into how banks and other financial services firms provide financial services to economically-disadvantaged and socially-disenfranchised groups. Some of the results of my research were published in my article Financial Inclusion and Banking Regulation: The Role of Proportionality.[1]  In this article, I demonstrate the relationship between financial regulation and technology and social inclusion and how the principle of proportionality can be applied to the regulation of digital financial services to widen access to financial services for socially-disadvantaged groups. 

My recent research analyses how a narrow interpretation of central bank mandates can exacerbate social inequality and how central banks can address this by using digital financial instruments in their operations.  Some of this research has resulted in a co-authored paper entitled Central Banking and Inequality which I presented on 8 June 2022 at the European Central Bank’s annual legal research conference.  This paper analyses the legal and regulatory mandates of the ECB, the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve to argue that they have a legal duty to consider how the use of monetary policy instruments can impact economic and social inequality.  [2] 

Moreover, I have supported gender diversity in my role as a PhD supervisor: 14 of the 22 successful PhD students whom I have supervised are women.  Having followed their career paths closely, I am very proud that each of the women went on to have successful professional careers either in academia, government or international organizations, or in private law practice or business.   Some of my PhD students have encountered unforeseen challenges and crises which had the potential to jeopardize their careers.  For example, one of my former PhD students had completed her PhD thesis (summa cum laude) under my supervision at the University of Zurich in 2020.  She began her career in the research division of the Bank of Ukraine (the Ukrainian Central Bank) in 2021.  After the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she became a displaced person who was forced to leave her home and job because of the military conflict in the Ukraine.  Her life and well-being were at risk.  She left the Ukraine as a war refugee, and I assisted her in obtaining asylum in Switzerland.  In supporting her, I submitted a research grant application to the Swiss National Foundation (SNF) in its Scholars at Risk program that supports academics and researchers who have fled war-torn countries and other social crises.  My SNF research grant application was approved and I was able to hire her as a post-doctoral research fellow to work on a project that examines the regulatory aspects of financial technology and European economic and financial sanctions and how they can be made more effective based on the regulation of financial technology and digital assets.  

In addition, teaching students at a Swiss university from such diverse national, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds has also helped me become more aware about how to deal with complex racial, gendered, and generational dynamics that can arise in a classroom setting – ranging from facilitating classroom discussions mediating in-class presentations and debates, to noticing who remains silent during these discussions, and how to create an environment that might encourage them to express their ideas.  In all of these roles, I strive to promote diversity and make the study of law, regulation and finance more inclusive.

[1] Kern Alexander, ‘Financial Inclusion and Banking Regulation: The Role of Proportionality’, Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, 84: 129-153.

[2] Kern Alexander and Seraina Gruenewald, ‘Central Banking and Inequality’, The European Central Bank Legal Research Seminar (8 June 2022). This paper is under review by a law and economics journal.