Professor Paul Andon

Dean

Professor Paul Andon is a Professor of Accounting and Dean of UNSW Business School, Australia’s leading business schools and home to the Australian Graduate School of Management. With extensive experience leading large-scale education reform, organisational transformation and industry engagement, he is recognised as one of Australia’s leading voices on the future of business education and leadership in an AI-enabled world.

This focus has shaped much of his recent leadership at UNSW. Professor Andon led the development of UNSW Business School’s AI Direction and oversaw the University’s largest student-facing OpenAI pilot, while helping rethink how core professional capabilities are developed alongside AI and emerging technologies.

Before becoming Dean, Professor Andon held a succession of senior leadership roles at UNSW, including Co-Interim Dean, Senior Deputy Dean (Education and Student Experience), Faculty Academic Lead, and Head of the School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. Across these roles, he led major initiatives in curriculum renewal, employability, industry partnership development and organisational transformation, with a consistent focus on ensuring business education remains closely connected to the needs of industry, society and a rapidly changing global economy.

Alongside his leadership work, Professor Andon is an internationally recognised scholar whose research examines sites of accounting controversy - including fraud, crisis and contested organisational change - generating insights that have informed professional practice, standards and regulatory thinking. Supported by major funding bodies including the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute of Criminology and international professional associations, his research has been published in leading journals including Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Management Studies, and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, and is recognised for its strong real-world relevance and impact.

Through both his research and academic leadership, Professor Andon has collaborated extensively with organisations including BDO, CPA Australia, McGrathNicol, Xero, and Chartered Accountants ANZ to strengthen connections between scholarship, professional practice, business education and policy. His contributions to academia and business education have been recognised through several honours, including CPA Australia’s 2024 President’s Award for Excellence in Achievement in Academia.

Professor Andon’s ambition is to position UNSW Business School as among the world’s most globally connected, future-focused and influential business schools. One where academic excellence, industry relevance and societal impact reinforce one another, and where the next generation of business leaders is prepared to navigate profound technological, economic and societal change.

Professor Andon is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and a Graduate of the Australin Institute of Company Directors.