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This month, let’s meet Yulia TITOVA, professor of Finance on the Paris campus since 2013.

One of IÉSEG’s main strengths is the excellence of its Faculty. More than 600 professor-researchers on the Lille campus and the Paris-La Défense campus contribute to the students’ learning journeys, enhancing their chances of achieving their professional goals and thriving in their careers. But who are these professors?

“Faculty in the Spotlight” is the monthly feature that offer a closer look at IÉSEG’s professors—their background, what they teach, why they joined IÉSEG, fun anecdotes and more.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I’m originally from Russia. I hold two Master’s degrees in Economics and Finance—one from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and the second from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. When I was a student, I discovered that my university in Moscow had an exchange program with Paris 1, which allowed me to spend the second year of my Master’s studies in Paris.

That experience in France, as a Master’s student in Finance, encouraged me to stay and pursue a PhD in Economics, which I completed in 2013. My doctoral research focused on risks in the European banking sector, particularly the role of derivatives and regulation. While writing my Master’s thesis in Paris, my academic supervisor encouraged me to develop the topic further through a PhD.

Before transitioning into academia, I also gained hands-on experience in the financial industry. I worked as a reporting assistant at KPMG in Moscow, an M&A intern at J.P. Morgan in London, and later, during my PhD, as a fundamental analysis intern at Exane Derivatives in Paris. These roles gave me international exposure in both academic and professional settings.

I joined IÉSEG in 2013—so it’s been more than ten years now. Before that, I had teaching experience at the European Business School and Sciences Po Paris. Currently, I’m the Academic Director of the Master in Finance and I’ve previously coordinated the Finance track in the Grande École Program. In addition to my academic degrees, I hold several professional certifications: the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), the ESG Investing Certificate, and the Sustainability and Climate Risk Certificate.

Why did you choose to become a professor?

I think, first and foremost, I’ve always enjoyed explaining things and helping others learn. Even as a child, after my first days at school, I’d come home and “teach” my dolls what I had learned. That habit stuck with me—explaining things helped me understand them better too. Later, when I was about 15, I tutored younger kids in English and maths. I loved seeing the moment when something clicked for them. That sense of progress and connection is really rewarding. I started teaching early on, and during my PhD, I was a teaching and research assistant. So, transmitting knowledge and making complex ideas accessible was a big motivation.

Could you tell us more about your area of expertise?

My expertise lies broadly in corporate finance. I enjoy financial analysis—trying to understand the bigger picture of a company by looking at its numbers and estimating its value.

More recently, my research has focused on sustainable finance. I explore how corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies relate to financial performance and valuation. I also study how the financial industry, particularly intermediaries, can help companies develop and implement CSR initiatives—essentially, their real-world impact.

In a way, finance sits at the intersection of economics and accounting. Economics can be quite theoretical and includes areas like macroeconomics, which studies things like national income, interest rates, inflation, and monetary systems; and microeconomics, which looks more at how firms and individuals make decisions—like how companies compete, or how supply and demand work. Finance borrows a lot from these concepts. It can also be broad, but traditionally it’s been divided into areas like corporate finance—how companies make financial decisions, choose investments, or raise funds—and market finance, which focuses on financial markets and instruments like stocks, bonds, and derivatives.

So, in corporate finance, for instance, we ask: what project should a company invest in? Should it finance that investment through debt or equity? Should it borrow money or issue new shares? How should it pay dividends to shareholders? These are all key questions in finance.

What courses do you teach at IÉSEG and what are they all about?

Currently, I mainly teach two courses—Firm Valuation in the Grande École program and Firm Valuation again in the Master in Finance, which is our specialized master program. I also teach Advanced Firm Valuation in the Master in Finance.

Starting next year, I’ll also be teaching a new course called Ethics in Finance. In the past, my course portfolio was broader. I’ve taught Financial Markets, Corporate Finance, Quantitative Methods, and so on. But in recent years, I’ve been focusing more and more on valuation.

Say we take a publicly listed company—like Renault or Peugeot. During the course, our goal will be to estimate how much that company is actually worth. We teach students to evaluate the firm’s value using financial models. The most common model we use is Discounted Cash Flow (DCF). The idea is to forecast the future free cash flows that the company is expected to generate. This depends on several factors—how fast the company can grow, how profitable it is, and how risky it is. Once we’ve forecasted those, we discount them back to today to arrive at an estimated value. So, for example, say the current stock price of Renault is €47 per share. Students are asked to determine whether that price is too high or too low, based on what the company is expected to deliver in terms of performance. If they find that Renault should actually be worth more, maybe it’s undervalued—and vice versa.

What pedagogical tools or methods do you use?

Our students have access to Bloomberg, which is a major financial data and analytics platform used by professionals in the industry. When I was a Master’s student, we didn’t have access to this. But now, our students can work with real-time financial data, which makes the course much more engaging and practical. It helps them become operational quickly, whether it’s for internships or future jobs.

We don’t focus only on theory. Theory is essential to understand the foundations, but the students also work on real-world cases. For example, this year, we did a case study where we estimated the value of Costco Wholesale, the U.S. retail giant. It’s a very hands-on experience.

I also invite financial analysts and investment bankers to give short presentations in class to highlight the relevance of the concepts we use in class. Many former students have a few years of professional experience now, some over five or six years. So, I ask them to come to class and explain what they do and how what they learned in firm valuation applies to their work.

What’s the impact of technology on your the subjects you teach?

A couple of years ago, a student asked me whether AI tools like ChatGPT would replace financial analysts. At the time, I hadn’t tried ChatGPT myself, so I couldn’t give a solid answer. I hadn’t tested it on financial concepts. This question made me think about the impact of AI and our role as professors. There’s so much information available now, and students can feel overwhelmed. Our role is to help them manage all this and develop critical thinking to evaluate AI outputs and search results. For example, in firm valuation, I ask students to critically evaluate some of the articles published on the website “Investopedia”. It is similar to Wikipedia but it focuses on finance concepts. It is a useful resource, but sometimes the explanations aren’t perfect. For instance, you can search for financial ratios, and while it is generally reliable, one of the valuation concepts we discussed in class wasn’t explained properly. I noticed that and decided to ask students to critically assess what’s provided rather than take it at face value. Yes, even in popular and reputable sources like this, we need to analyze and not just accept everything as true. That’s what I focus on. Now with AI-generated content, some media rely heavily on AI, which can amplify misinformation. That’s why education and critical thinking are more important than ever.

Any special memories or anecdotes from your time at the School so far?

That’s a tough question. I’ve been here since 2013, so I have many memories. One highlight was the Learning Expedition to Rwanda with colleagues, where we explored social entrepreneurship and inclusion in education. Another highlight was coaching the IÉSEG student team for the CFA Research Challenge. In 2017, we won the French final, which was very rewarding! And last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Master in Finance program and I had the opportunity to reconnect with graduates who have become working professionals and even experts. It was a lot of fun to meet them again!