Les Coleman Email & Phone Number

Les Coleman trained as an engineer, and spent 28 years in senior management positions with resources, manufacturing and finance companies in Australia and three other countries. He then completed a PhD in Management at the University of Melbourne where his thesis was published as "Why Managers and Companies Take Risks" (Springer, 2006), and worked as a finance academic at the University of Melbourne for 18 years. Les has held part time roles as a director of Australian Ethical Investment, member of the Investment Committees of Insignia Financial and Frais Capital, trustee of three superannuation funds, and director of a dozen unlisted companies. For four years he wrote a weekly business strategy column for The Australian newspaper, and remains a regular contributor to the media.Les draws on this rich background to inform his professional activities, and ongoing research. The last is built around the broad topic of decision making and has moved recently to the question of why dark matter, or knowledge gaps, dominates knowledge. Not just in physics, but in economics with the invisible hand and behavioural economics; in medicine with placebos and idiopathic disease; and through minimal understanding of such important phenomena as volcanoes, earthquakes, orebody formation, and climate. His critique was published as “Research in Crisis” (Routledge, London, 2021), which advocated rigorous extra-disciplinary studies.This prompted him to publish four papers in science journals from an extra-disciplinary perspective that innovates thinking around astrophysics puzzles including gravity, the first interstellar object sighted Oumuamua, and unidentified anomalous objects. Through several OpEds in Australian Financial Review and other media, Les has laid out strategies to improve university governance and research. Les is currently completing a book entitled "The Business Case for Sustainability" that sets out sustainability problems, identifies underlying causes and proposes workable solutions.A selection of Les' publications is available at: https://linktr.ee/lescoleman. Les is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and active in Landcare. Amongst his jobs prior to entering academia, Les worked as a mining engineer in Zambia, spent four years in Mobil Corporation’s international planning group at its headquarters near Washington DC, worked as Australian EHS policy manager, and was regional treasurer for ExxonMobil Australia for six years to 2002.