Cindy A Schipani is the Merwin H Waterman Collegiate Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Business Law at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She has served as President of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business and is a past recipient of the Louis and Myrtle Moskowitz Research Professorship in Law and Business. Professor Schipani received her JD from the University of Chicago School of Law. She has held visiting faculty appointments at the University of Michigan Law School, University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the University of Sydney Faculty of Law as a Parsons Fellow and Flinders University of South Australia as a Distinguished International Visitor. Professor Schipani has also spent a year on the faculty of the University of Hawaii School of Law. Before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, she served as a Law Clerk for Justice Charles L Levin of the Michigan Supreme Court. She has also practiced law with two major commercial law firms, Mayer, Brown in Chicago and Dickinson Wright in Detroit.
Professor Schipani’s primary research interests are in corporate governance, with a focus on the relationship among directors, officers, shareholders and other stakeholders and pathways for women to obtain positions of organisational leadership. Her research has included consideration of specific issues confronting directors of financial institutions, analysis of the corporate fiduciary duties of care and loyalty, issues of liability for environmental violations and ethical links between corporate governance and sustainable peace. She has published over 40 journal articles and a book and receives numerous invitations to present her research nationally and internationally, including in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and throughout Europe. She has earned many awards for her work including over 15 conference paper awards, the Academy of Legal Studies in Business National Award for Excellence and its Holmes-Cardozo Research Award, the Ross School of Business Contribution to Research Environment Award, and the University of Michigan Sarah Goddard Power Award and its Outstanding Research Mentor Award.