Professor Bala Balachandran joined La Trobe University in February 2009. Prior to this he worked at Monash University, the Victoria University of Wellington, and the University of Jaffna. He received his Master of Social Science and PhD in Finance from the University of Birmingham. Bala has published research papers in high quality finance journals, including Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Markets and European Accounting Review. Bala has led many successful research grant applications. Most notably, he secured funding of more than $600k from Australian Research Council. Bala’s insights into the empirical applications of corporate finance is evidenced by the media interest in his work as well as his expert opinion in the Supreme Court proceedings.

Bala initiated and organized an international conference on Finance and Corporate Governance for La Trobe University in 2010 to bring academics, practitioners and students together. The resounding success of the first Conference paved the way for the next 9 conferences.
Bala received an award in appreciation of “outstanding initiative and work in bringing the FMCG conference into being and success” at the 4th Financial Markets and Corporate Governance conference held in Wellington, NZ in 2013.
Bala also received Founders Award at the 10th FMCG conference in Sydney in April 2019 for "founding the FMCG conference in 2010 and outstanding contributions to research mentorship and developing research culture over the past 10
years".
Since 2014, Bala is serving as a guest editor for the Pacific Basin Finance Journal.

Bala has published his research findings in leading international journals such as:

Journal of Financial Economics
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Journal of Corporate Finance
Journal of Banking and Finance
Journal of Financial Markets
European Accounting Review