Faculty Profile: Ali Rkein

Professor Rkein

The Olayan School of Business welcomed Ali Rkein in September 2008 as assistant professor in the finance, accounting, and managerial economics track. Originally Lebanese, Rkein is also an Australian citizen, who gained most of his teaching experience from Charles Darwin University (CDU), Northern Australia, where he also received his PhD in 2008.

Away from his Lebanese family for the past decade, Rkein is happy to be back home and could not think of a better work-place in the region than AUB. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in business from the Lebanese University in 1998, Rkein accompanied two of his friends to Darwin, where one friend’s brother worked as dean at CDU. Rkein completed his master’s in accounting there in 2000, before heading all the way to Arizona for an MBA in finance from Western International University (2001).

After graduation, Rkein worked in the mortgage business as a loan officer. In 2002, he returned briefly to Lebanon, married, taught at the Lebanese University, and finalized his travel arrangements back to Darwin for his PhD. “I knew then that I wanted to focus on accounting, and there was a well-renowned professor teaching at CDU,” explained Rkein.

During his PhD work (2003-08), Rkein taught accounting to undergrads and post-graduates. He was also the associate coordinator for VET (vocational education training) courses in accounting.  His five-year teaching experience qualifies him to give an insightful comparison between AUB students and students abroad. “Generally speaking, AUB students are more dynamic, though at times noisier than students in Australia; they are bright, multilingual and open-minded,  with  great curiosity, thirst for knowledge, and capacity for quality learning,” vouched Rkein.        

Rkein’s research focus has been concentrated on public sector accounting, but now he feels the need to switch to financial accounting and corporate governance.  Overall, Rkein has many reasons to be optimistic. A family man with two daughters, he also reads religious and political books, enjoys jogging and swimming, and plans to make full use of AUB’s Charles Hostler Center.