Dr. Ásgeir Brynjar Torfason is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iceland, School of Business, with a focus on Accounting and Finance. He was a Wallander Postdoc fellow at the GRI - School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg from 2015-2017. In 2014 Ásgeir defended his thesis, Cash Flow Accounting in Banks - A study of practice, at the University of Gothenburg. For his thesis, Ásgeir received the Oscar Sillén prize in 2015 as one of the two best dissertations in Sweden in Business Economics finished in 2014. In May 2016 he was appointed by the Icelandic Parliament to serve in the first Fiscal Council in Iceland.
Ásgeir‘s research focus is mainly on Banks and Central Banks, Flow of Capital and Money, Accounting, Monetary Economics, Fiscal Policy, Financial Markets Regulations and Responsible Management. At the University of Iceland, he teaches Business Ethics, Financial Statement Analysis, Accounting and Audit Theory and Economics of Money and Banking.
In 2010, Ásgeir defended his Licentiate thesis which was published a year later as the book called: Investments in a long-term perspective - how a family firm has built its assets. Ásgeir holds international MBA (2001) with honors from the Norwegian Business School and a BA (1999) from the University of Iceland in Philosophy and Economics.
Ásgeir started early working on farm and for ABB on Hydro power plants projects and Aluminium smelters. Having received his MBA, he worked as a manager of operations at the University of Iceland from 2001-2004. After moving to Sweden, Ásgeir started up in 2005 the Nordic operations of ProLogis (NYSE: PLD), an investment trust focusing on industrial real estate as Vice President until 2008.
Currently, Ásgeir is a board member of Gagnsæi, an Icelandic anti-corruption organisation to become a member of Transparency International. He has also been an active participant in the development of the Young Scholar Initiative (YSI) which was established at the Berlin conference of Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) in april 2012 and is currently the Chairman of the Community Report Committee of the YSI. From 2007 – 2010, Ásgeir was deputy board member in SIPA, Scandinavian International Property Association and s treasurer and board member in Rådasjöns Yacht Club 2008-2010.
Ásgeir enjoys ultra running, back-country skiing, mountain biking and sailing, he lives in Reykjavík and has two grown up children currently both university students.