Dimity Anne Kingsford Smith

Professor Dimity Anne Kingsford Smith is a distinguished academic at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law & Justice, where she serves as Director of Higher Degree Research (since mid-2022) and holds expertise in financial regulation, corporations law, and securities regulation. She has been a faculty member at UNSW Law since January 2005 and previously held positions at Monash Law, University of Sydney, University College London, and University of Warwick.

Her educational background includes academic appointments at prestigious institutions across Australia and the UK, with sabbatical visits to the London School of Economics (1999) and University of British Columbia (2012). Her career demonstrates a consistent trajectory in legal academia with a specialization in financial regulation.

Professor Kingsford Smith's research focuses on corporate law and governance, financial regulation and regulatory theory and policy. Her work spans from director's duties through the theory and practice of financial regulation to empirical studies on online investing and the deterrent effects of enforcement using enforceable undertakings. She has published extensively on the philosophy of fairness in financial markets, political obligation, and the concept of the 'financial citizen,' as well as critical analyses of 'responsive regulation' in financial services and the limits of financial consumer decision-making informed by behavioral economics.

Her recent scholarly output demonstrates a strong focus on the intersection of regulatory theory, financial markets, and consumer protection, with increasing attention to digital finance, enforcement mechanisms, and cross-jurisdictional regulatory challenges. Her work bridges theoretical legal scholarship with practical regulatory applications.

• Chief Investigator on Australian Research Council grants
• Contract research for ASIC and Canadian Investment Dealers Association
• Director of the Centre for Law, Markets and Regulation (2016-2019)
• Minter Ellison Chair in Risk and Regulation (2018-2021)

Professor Kingsford Smith actively supervises PhD candidates on corporate and financial regulatory topics and teaches across undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs in corporations law, corporate governance, regulation of securities markets, and online investing. She has served on numerous policy-making bodies including the ASIC External Advisory Panel (2015-2019), the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority Code Committee (2011-2017), and as the first independent Customer Advocate to the National Australia Bank wealth business (2015-2017).