Megan Tobias Neely

Assistant Professor of Organization at Copenhagen Business School

Megan Tobias Neely is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and an affiliate of Stanford University's VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab. She specializes in studying workplace and economic inequality, focusing on the intersections of gender, race, and social class. Her research critically examines how these factors influence access to earnings and capital, particularly in the financial sector and industries like hedge funds and venture capital.

Academic Background and Research

Neely earned her PhD in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a Research Analyst for BlackRock, Inc. from 2007 to 2010, an experience that fueled her interest in the mechanisms that reproduce inequality in the workplace, especially on Wall Street.

Her notable works include:

Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street (2022), which explores the dynamics of wealth and privilege within the hedge fund industry.
Divested: Inequality in the Age of Finance (2020), co-authored with Ken-Hou Lin, which discusses the financial sector's role in exacerbating economic inequality in the U.S.

Neely's research has garnered attention from various media outlets, including The New York Times, TIME, and Harvard Business Review, and she has been invited to present her findings at significant conferences and summits, including those organized by the United Nations and TechCrunch.

Current Projects

Recently, Neely was awarded a prestigious Sapere Aude grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark to lead a research project titled "Building Research on Artificial Intelligence (BRAIN)." This project aims to investigate the backgrounds and working methods of AI scientists and how these factors influence the development of AI technologies and their societal impacts.1 2 3 4

Through her work, Neely is contributing to ongoing discussions about inequality in various sectors and the implications of AI in contemporary society.