Unleashing the power of words in finance: the use of AI to uncover ESG reporting content | Live, Brussels

13.03.24

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In today’s rapidly evolving financial landscape, the role of words, particularly within Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reports, is gaining unprecedented significance. Despite this growing importance, there exists a notable gap in comprehending the optimal utilization of language in driving informed decision-making processes within finance. This event will help to delve into this critical aspect.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, there lies an opportunity to unravel the complexities embedded within the language of ESG reports. This event will focus on the use of artificial intelligence to analyze the content of ESG reports – we will explore how to extract information from ESG reports and quantify the impact of unstructured information on the stock market.

About the speaker

Prof.dr. James Thewissen is Associate Professor (Tenured) of Corporate Finance at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium and Vice-Dean of External Corporate Relations and Communication at the Louvain School of Management. His research interests include corporate finance, sentiment analytics, sustainable finance, econometric modelling, machine learning and international finance. In particular, he researches on the development of machine learning methods to optimize the extraction of information from unstructured data contained in corporate disclosures, such as annual reports, audit reports, earnings press releases and CEO letters to shareholders.

He also serves as expert at the European Commission and conducted projects for the National Bank of Belgium. In addition, he has been involved in various regulatory working groups, such as the Financial Innovation Standing Committee (FISC) at the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). His research has recently been published in leading finance and accounting journals such as Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Corporate Finance, Financial Management, European Accounting Review, Journal of Banking & Finance and International Review of Financial Analysis, among others. Other work is currently in revision in other leading Financial Times 50 journals, e.g. Information Systems Review.

Finally, he has been recently interested in the application of artificial intelligence methods to identify topics discussed in ESG reports and their value relevance for investors and ESG rating providers.

Registration is open until 12 March.

For more information about the event, please contact Diana Gedeikytė-Jakutienė via diana.gj@bmiinstitute.com or +370 600 368 38