Erik Davidson

About Erik Davidson

Dr. Erik Davidson, CFA, CTFA is a finance professor at Baylor University. He also serves as an advisor to Inspire ETFs and as an Instructor / Curriculum Consultant for the American Bankers Association. He provides subject matter expert consulting on wealth and investment management matters as well as behavioral finance topics.Prior to embarking on this second career in academia, Dr. Davidson had a 35-year career in financial services. In 2019, he retired from Wells Fargo Private Bank where he had spent 15 years in various investment leadership roles. His tenure there culminated as the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) where he led an investment team of more than 400 professionals (portfolio managers, research, equity, fixed-income, alternatives, real assets, product, and analytics) who managed more than $200 billion.Prior to Wells Fargo, Dr. Davidson was the co-Founder and co-CEO of Separate Account Solutions, Inc, a technology company that provided separately managed account (SMA) tools and services. Earlier in his career, he led portfolio management for Franklin Templeton Private Client Services and was a bond trading manager for Credit Suisse First Boston in both New York City and Tokyo. His lifelong interest in applying academic theory to investing was formed early in his career when he worked for Dimensional Fund Advisors.Dr. Davidson’s academic research has focused primarily on topics in the field of behavioral finance. His doctoral dissertation was “Investment Choice Architecture in the Age of Robo-Advisors”. His joint paper, “Does Investor Sentiment Affect Market Response to Earnings Restatements?”, was accepted for presentation at the 2018 Queen Mary University of London’s Behavioural Finance Working Group Conference.A very effective communicator, Dr. Davidson is the co-author of \"Investing in Separate Accounts\" and contributing co-author of \"The E-Finance Report\", both published by McGraw-Hill. He has written many investment articles, presented at hundreds of investor events, and has been a regularly featured commentator in the media including television (CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, and others), radio and podcast (Bloomberg, Wharton Business, and others), and print (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron’s, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, and others). Dr. Davidson is an advisory board member for DePaul University’s Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance as well as for the \"Journal of Impact and ESG Investing\", a church elder, a Mensa member, an Eagle Scout, a foster care provider, and an active community volunteer.

Experience

1. Consultant - Wealth Management

   American Bankers Association

   Jan 2019 — Present

Education

• St. Olaf College

  Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree, Economics

• Waseda University

  International Division, Economics and Japanese Language

• DePaul University

  Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) Degree, Behavioral Finance

• UCLA

  Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree, Finance and Investments