Professor Walls joined the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in 2019 as the Chair for Sustainability Management and Director of the Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ). She also serves as the HSG Delegate for Responsibility and Sustainability. Before her tenure at HSG, she held academic positions at Nanyang Business School (NTU Singapore) and the John Molson School of Business (Concordia University).
Professor Walls earned her PhD at the Lally School of Management (Rensselaer) and was an Alcoa Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Erb Institute for Sustainable Enterprise (University of Michigan). She also holds an MBA in International Business from the NUS Business School (National University of Singapore) and an MSc in Wildlife, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Health from the Edinburgh Medical School (University of Edinburgh).
Her research sits at the intersection of business and environmental sustainability, with a focus on behavioural governance, board and managerial characteristics, and the responses of companies to stakeholder and shareholder pressures. Her work extends to environmental governance in industries affecting land use, such as agricultural commodities, mining, and trophy hunting. Professor Walls has published in leading academic journals, received numerous prestigious research awards and grants, and serves on several editorial boards.
In addition to her research contributions, Professor Walls has been actively involved in academic leadership, including serving on the leadership team of the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) Division at the Academy of Management (AOM), the board of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), and the scientific committee of the Group of Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN). She also serves on multiple corporate advisory boards.
Before her academic career, Professor Walls held senior roles in investor relations research, consulting, and business development at Thomson Financial (now Thomson Reuters) in Europe and Asia-Pacific. She also managed operations for conservation NGOs in Namibia, Botswana, and Mongolia, further enhancing her practical expertise in sustainability and environmental management.