Ernst & Young backs chair

By IRENE CHAPPLE

The Auckland University Business School is looking for more corporate sponsorship after winning Ernst & Young as partner in a new chair in financial accounting.

The accounting firm will pay $1 million to have naming rights and partnership in the chair.

An international search for a professor to fill it is underway.

It is the second chair - the first, a professor of entrepreneurship, was through an anonymous benefactor - that has been paid for with money raised by the university. The dean of the University of Auckland Business School, Barry Spicer, said 12 chairs were planned.

Negotiations were underway for the sponsorship or endowment of five more chairs, he said.

Sponsoring chairs is common in the United States but is less usual here because the educational system has historically relied on Government money.

For its $1 million Ernst & Young gets the naming rights and some involvement in the chair's work, including looking at common areas such as "thought leadership".

The money will be spread over six years and while Spicer would not say how much would go towards salary, "the markets for academic staff are truly global ... we seek to pay an international salary".

Spicer said the school was looking for a top-flight academic.

He or she would provide mentoring and academic leadership, teach financial accounting, and be actively involved in the profession.

The Government has said it will match, dollar for dollar, up to $25 million worth of donations.