Professor Winifred Huang is a Professor of Finance and Digital Strategy at the School of Management, University of Bath, where she leads research at the intersection of traditional financial rigor and the transformative power of the digital economy. While her foundation remains firmly rooted in corporate finance, specializing in dividend policy, liquidity management, and bank payout structures, her current work focuses on how digital innovations, such as crowdfunding, fintech platforms, token financing and, redefine firm-level strategic decision-making and global market positioning.

She currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, the British Accounting Review and the Small Business Economics and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Winifred bridges the gap between technical accounting excellence and strategic digital transformation. Her research provides a framework for how modern businesses can navigate financial technology to improve market contestability and investor engagement in an increasingly decentralised financial landscape.

Research Interest:

• SME finance and entrepreneurial finance
• Digital finance and financial developments with technology (digital lending/borrowing platforms)
• Empirical corporate finance and liquidity management

Keywords: empirical corporate finance, dividend policy, corporate liquidity management, capital structure, SME finance, alternative finance, entrepreneurial finance, start-up financing, crowdfunding, crowdlending, initial coin offerings, financial technology, financial innovation

Key Profile:

Her research has been published in several international journals, such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Research Policy, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Corporate Finance, British Journal of Management, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, European Journal of Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, and Small Business Economics.  She specialises in financing decisions, firm liquidity management, digital finance, and entrepreneurial finance, and mainly addresses two main themes:

1. How firms (small/medium/large firm size) manage their liquid assets and how the real effects of financial market conditions influence the firm’s financial decision making on investment opportunities.
2. Alternative finance for SMEs, entrepreneurs and start-ups along with digital technology developments, including crowdlending financing and via initial coin offerings (ICOs).

Her current work focuses on identifying the influential effects of financial innovations and financial technology developments on financial markets, addressing challenges that current businesses face, and providing solutions to adopt new technologies and to improve the customer experience, as well as the job environment conditions.  

She has been acting as the guest editor of two Special Issues* (the European Journal of Finance and the European Financial Management). Also, she has been an ad-hoc reviewer for several internationally well-established journals and conferences, such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, British Journal of Management, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, British Accounting Review, Small Business Economics, Financial Management Association Annual Meeting, European Financial Management Association Conference, Entrepreneurial Finance (ENTFIN) Annual Conferences, and INFINITI, etc.

*(i) One special issue of the European Journal of Finance on “The New Challenges of Global Banking and Finance” and (ii) another special issue of the European Financial Management on "Financial Innovation, Regulations and Banking” (see details: here).

Organiser of Conferences:

• 2022/09/08-09/09: The 6th Entrepreneurial Finance (ENTFIN) Annual Meeting, University of Bath, UK (ENTFIN 2022 website)
• 2025/05/19-05/20: 1st GW4 Sustainable Finance Conference, University of Bath, UK (GW4 Sustainable Finance Network website; Programme)
• 2025/05/22-05/23: The Role of Auctions in the Allocation of Resources, University of Bath, UK (website)