Meet our Dean
Learn more about our Dean, Professor Susan Watson.
Professor Susan Watson is the Dean of the University of Auckland Business School, and holds joint chairs in the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland.
Susan researches and teaches primarily corporate law and corporate governance. She has a particular interest in the corporate form and in her research seeks to understand how the form developed, why it is so successful, and the economic and societal impact of corporations.
Susan’s research has been published widely in New Zealand and internationally; she has edited and co-authored treatises and textbooks, five edited collections and numerous articles and book chapters. Her work has been cited and discussed by other scholars in the field and by courts at all levels including the UK Supreme Court. From 2007 until 2014 Susan was joint editor of the New Zealand Business Law Quarterly, and is currently the New Zealand editor for the Journal of Business Law.
In 2016 she won the Legal Research Foundation Sir Ian Barker Published Article Award for How the Company Became an Entity - A New Understanding of Corporate Law. Her most recent book is Corporate Law in New Zealand (Thomson Reuters) jointly edited with Professor Lynne Taylor of Canterbury University.
Susan has been a visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University, Tilburg University, and a visiting academic in the University of Oxford Law Faculty. She was elected president of the Society of Corporate Law Academics (SCoLa) at the beginning of 2020; the first President for the Association elected from outside Australia where it is primarily based. Susan is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) the only New Zealander to be appointed to date.
Before joining the University, Susan worked as a staff solicitor and associate in two city law firms, and taught part of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies law professionals course. She was Head of Department of Commercial Law in the Business School from 2008 to the end of 2010 and Associate Dean Academic Faculty in 2011. Susan was Deputy Dean of the Law School from 2014 until the end of 2017. She was Deputy Dean of the Business School for the second half of 2019 and has been Dean of the Business School since the beginning of 2020.