Joel M. Stern is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Stern Stewart & Co., and the creator and developer of Economic Value Added (EVA). He is a recognised authority on financial economics, corporate performance measurement, corporate valuation and incentive compensation and is a pioneer and leading advocate of the concept of shareholder value. He is also active in academia, and in the media.After graduating from the University of Chicago's graduate programme in Finance and Economics, he joined the Chase Manhattan Bank where he ultimately ran Chase Financial Policy, their global consulting operation. During this time, he developed EVA. In 1982, after 18 years at Chase Manhattan, he started Stern Stewart as "[1]he bank didn't have the vision [2] felt was necessary to turn a consulting practise based on the economic model of the firm into a successful business."