Simon Deakin a professor of law and director of the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge University. Simon Deakin specialises in the study of labour, private and company law from an interdisciplinary and empirical perspective. His books include The Law of the Labour Market: Industrialization, Employment and Legal Evolution (2005, with Frank Wilkinson), and Hedge Fund Activism in Japan: The Limits of Shareholder Primacy (2012, with John Buchanan and Dominic Heesang Chai). He has recently been an investigator on ESRC-funded projects exploring the relationship between law and development, in the course of which he carried out fieldwork in China, Russia, South Africa and India. His current projects include work funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund on the effects of conflict in terms of health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He is also researching on the impact of digital technologies in labour markets and legal systems.