Dr Bridget Kustin
Senior Research Fellow and Director, Ownership Project 2.0: Private Capital Owners & Impact · Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Keynote — Where Philanthropy Meets Capital: Wealth Inequality and the Porous Border Between Returns and Purpose
Bridget is an economic anthropologist (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) who studies family ownership and wealth, focusing on single family offices and large business-owning families. She served as Director of Ownership Project 2.0: Private Capital Owners & Impact at University of Oxford's Saïd Business School, and led the qualitative research during the first phase of the Project. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Saïd Business School, Research Fellow of Green Templeton College, and holds a visiting appointment (2025–26) at the Politecnico di Milano. Bridget is a Co-Investigator of a UK Research and Innovation's Future Leaders' Fellowship grant regarding the use of trusts in the UK and is Academic Director of the Polycapital Academy at Green Templeton College for philanthropy professionals and wealth-holders. Her research has been supported by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Berlin's Center for Social Science Research, and the Gates Foundation. At Saïd Business School, Bridget teaches Family Business and Capitalism in Debate to MBA students. Her research on families and private wealth has been discussed in Bloomberg, Financial Times, WealthNet, and Crain Currency.