Ludovic Phalippou

Ludovic Phalippou is one of the most incisive and closely followed thinkers in private equity today. A Professor of Financial Economics at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Phalippou specialises in private equity and asset management, with particular focus on fee structures, interest alignment, and performance measurement.

His bestselling book, Private Equity Laid Bare, cemented his reputation for making a complex and opaque world intelligible for investors and practitioners alike. Ludovic Phalippou works directly with large institutional investors on investment decisions and benchmarking systems, advises government bodies, and speaks regularly at high-level practitioner conferences. His award-winning paper, “How alternative are private markets?”, received the Jack Treynor Prize for its practical relevance to investment management.

Phalippou’s commentary reaches far beyond academia. He is an international voice on issues of governance, incentives, transparency, and industry accountability. His analyses in The Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, and elsewhere have challenged the idea that private equity consistently outperforms, highlighting instead the selective reporting and structural conflicts that complicate such claims.

At Oxford, he teaches private equity to MBA, MFE and EMBA students and has developed numerous executive programmes for leading consulting firms and asset managers. Ludovic Phalippou’s speaking style is candid but demanding. He pushes his audience to look past jargon, interrogate data, and understand who really benefits from the structures they so often take as given.

Phalippou approaches life with a healthy sense of balance. He races road bikes, drinks fine wine (never at the same time), and manages a stretch of real estate including a forest — a project with a practical aim: carbon capture. He is a Fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he sits on the Investment Committee and, with equal dedication, the Wine Committee (far more serious than it sounds).