With its Speaker Series, the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence invites experts from all over the world to talk about ethics and governance of AI. These events serve as an important platform for sharing new research and exchanging knowledge.

We are pleased to announce that the speaker for this session is Emeritus Prof. Christopher Cowton.

Christopher Cowton is Emeritus Professor at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, where he served as Professor of Accounting (1996-2016), Dean of the Business School (2008-2016) and Professor of Financial Ethics (2016-2019). His published work ranges from philosophy to production engineering, but most of it is focused on business and financial ethics. He was Editor of the journal Business Ethics: A European Review from 2004 to 2013. He holds a PhD from the University of Sheffield and was awarded the University of Huddersfield’s first ever DLitt (Doctor of Letters). He is a holder of the British Accounting and Finance Association’s Life-time Achievement Award and in 2025 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Earlier in his career, Prof. Cowton lectured at Aberystwyth University, Cardiff University and the University of Oxford. On retiring from his final academic post, he worked as Associate Director of the business-facing Institute of Business Ethics (2019-2023). He continues to undertake both academic and business/professional activities in business and financial ethics.

The topic of this session will be “AI Ethics at Work: Reflections on Designing Training for Accountants”.

In his talk, Prof. Cowton will share about his experience of writing an online learning module for members of one of the UK’s leading professional accounting bodies. He will explain the challenges that this entailed and how he tackled them, as he sought to develop a module that would provide useful ethical insights and understanding for a diverse range of accountants whose knowledge and experience of AI might be limited. Reflecting on this experience, Prof. Cowton will offer a set of conclusions, suggestions and questions regarding the promotion of ethical AI as it becomes increasingly embedded in accounting and other professional fields.

This TUM IEAI event will take place on June 24th, 2026 at 12:00 pm (CEST) at the TUM Think Tank.

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