Portrait of Stephen Shu

Stephen Shu

Research Student

Bayes Business School, Faculty of Finance

Contact

Visit Stephen Shu

Bunhill Row

Postal address

Bayes Business School
106 Bunhill Row
London
EC1Y 8TZ
United Kingdom

About

Overview

Steve Shu specializes in behavioral finance, and his current research interests include savings, retirement, and democratizing financial decision making in digital and FinTech environments.

Outside of City, University of London, Steve Shu specializes in incubating new initiatives and business lines with a primary focus on services, technology, and behavioral science. He serves as a Managing Principal at Digital Nudging Tech, a behavioral economics consultancy and innovation firm. Steve has consulted to or had management roles at organizations such as The Voya Behavioral Finance Institute for Innovation, Allianz Global Investors Center for Behavioral Finance, Allscripts, Nortel Business Consulting, PRTM Management Consultants (acquired by PwC), and numerous startups. Steve is prospectively scheduled to teach courses at Cornell University on Applied Behavioral Economics in Finance and Marketing, and the CEMS Masters in International Management consulting project.

Qualifications

  • PhD, City University of London, United Kingdom, Sep 2017 – Jul 2021
  • Master of Business Administration (MBA), The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA, Aug 1997 – Jun 1999
  • Master of Engineering (MEng), Electrical Engineering, Cornell University, USA, Aug 1990 – Jun 1992
  • Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Electrical Engineering, Cornell University, USA, Aug 1987 – Jun 1991

Employment

  • Consultant and Behavioral Finance Specialist, Voya Financial, Jan 2016 – present
  • Managing Principal, Digital Nudging Tech (formerly Digitai), Nov 2013 – present
  • Consultant and Director, Allianz Global Investors, Sep 2010 – Feb 2017
  • Consultant and Director, Innovation Projects, Allscripts, Jun 2009 – Dec 2012
  • Practice Leader and Principal, Nortel Networks, Nov 2005 – Mar 2009
  • Director, Consulting and Interim Management Services, S4 Management Group, Sep 2004 – Nov 2005
  • Vice President of Operations, FiveSight Technologies, Nov 2000 – Aug 2004
  • Management Consultant, PRTM Management Consultants (acquired by PwC), Jun 1998 – Nov 2000
  • Systems Engineer and Service Line Manager, Telcordia (formerly Bellcore), Jun 1992 – Aug 1997

Expertise

Geographic Areas

  • Americas - North

Research

Title of thesis: Investigations of Pennies, Percent, and Temporal Reframing to Improve Savings

Sep 2017 – Jul 2021

Summary of research

Current research covers savings and related issues faced as part of the rise of the Gig Economy and wide heterogeneity of workers in terms of individual behavioral differences (e.g., numeracy, preferences, biases). Topics include: Pennies on the Dollar Reframing and Savings, Temporal Reframing and Savings

External supervisors

  • Smith, D. City, University London.
  • Thomas, S. City, University London.

Publications

Books (3)

  1. Shu, S. and Lewis, A. (2019). Nudging Democratized: A Guide to Applying Behavioral Science. The Decision Lab. ISBN 978-1-07-308748-8.
  2. Shu, S. (2016). Inside Nudging Implementing Behavioral Science Initiatives. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5327-8080-6.
  3. Shu, S. (2015). The Consulting Apprenticeship 40 Jump-Start Ideas for You and Your Business. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-5142-1716-0.

Conference paper/proceedings

  1. Shu, S.D., Bliven, S.E. and Belina, J.C. Training Of Feedforward Neural Network Architectures For Feature Recognition Of Abnormal ECG Waveforms. Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Volume 13: 1991. doi:10.1109/iembs.1991.684508

Journal articles (3)

  1. Hershfield, H.E., Shu, S. and Benartzi, S. (2020). Temporal Reframing and Participation in a Savings Program: A Field Experiment. Marketing Science, 39(6), pp. 1039–1051. doi:10.1287/mksc.2019.1177.

    [publisher’s website]

  2. Seaman, K., Green, M., Shu, S. and Samanez-Larkin, G. (2019). Individual Differences in Loss Aversion and Preferences for Skewed Risks Across Adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 33(4), pp. 654–654.
  3. Shu, S.B. and Shu, S.D. (2018). The Psychology of Decumulation Decisions During Retirement. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5(2), pp. 216–223. doi:10.1177/2372732218790034.

    [publisher’s website]

Other

  1. Shu, S. Pennies Reframing and Savings (Working Paper).