Carol Liao

Dr. Carol Liao is an Associate Professor at Allard Law and the UBC Sauder Distinguished Fellow of the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. Her research focuses on corporate law and sustainability, climate governance, and social justice. She is the Co-Director with Professor Naomi Klein of the Centre for Climate Justice and is the Chair and Principal Co-Investigator of the Canada Climate Law Initiative, dedicated to advancing director knowledge on the latest in climate risk and fiduciary obligations.  

Dr. Liao is Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Insight Grant-funded empirical study on sustainable corporate governance and a UBC research excellence cluster member of the Future Minerals Initiative and Decision Insights for Business & Society. She has delivered over 200 invited talks around the world on sustainable business and has been featured over 100 times in TV, radio, and print news media on corporate governance, ESG, and equity issues. In 2024, she was recognized with the UBC Public Engagement Award. As Director of the Centre for Business Law from 2019-2023, she hosted over 125 professional and scholarly events on range of contemporary business topics and oversaw two experiential learning programs.  

Committed to community-engaged scholarship, Dr. Liao is featured in the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) BC documentary But I Look Like a Lawyer, and sits on the FACL BC Advisory Committee. She delivered the closing keynote at the 43rd Annual Women in Law Dinner and FACL BC 10th Anniversary Gala. Dr. Liao is a member of the Solicitors' Legal Opinions Committee of BC and serves on the Advisory Council for BCBusiness and Vancouver Magazine. She also sits on the boards of InBC Investment Corporation, YWCA Metro Vancouver, and the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research at the Institute of Corporate Directors. At UBC, Dr. Liao is a member of the Steering Committee of the Climate Solutions Research Collective and the Advisory Board of The Phil Lind Initiative. She is also a Research Associate at the UVic Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives. Dr. Liao is the recipient of the Influential Women in Business Award, BCBusiness Women of the Year Award, TELUS Community Service Award, Canada's Clean50 Award, and was named as one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women and Canada's Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers.

Before joining UBC, Dr. Liao was a faculty member at the University of Victoria where she received the UVic Law Students’ Society First Year Class Teaching Award. Prior to academia, she was a senior associate in the New York Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Shearman & Sterling LLP (now A&O Shearman), where she represented public and private multinational corporations in a variety of transactional and governance matters. She also served at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She is a former judicial clerk of the BC Court of Appeal.

https://allard.ubc.ca/about-us/our-people/carol-liao