ilias is a Distinguished Academic and Researcher with 25+ years of experience specialising in auditing policy and governance research. He is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Aston University in the UK. Expert in translating complex research into government policy solutions, pedagogy, online and in-person delivery of education, mentorship, high-level intellectual leadership, and strategic project planning and management. Now focused on leveraging expertise as a consultant or part-time advisor for government, non-profits, charities, and other organisations, and also continuing disseminating research and publishing. Also, offering expertise in mentoring and advising doctoral students, strategic research planning, and delivering ad-hoc courses in higher education.

Ilias was previously senior lecturer/associate professor of Financial Accounting & Auditing in the Accounting Department at Aston Business School. ilias is also Fellow of the UK Academy of Higher Education. He is former Chairman of the Auditing Special Interest Group of the British Accounting and Finance Association 2008-2024) and former Editor of the International Journal of Auditing (2012-2022). ilias also served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Auditing between 2022-2024. He has also been external examiner in various universities, among others in the East Anglia University, Norwich Business School, the University of Oxford Brookes, and the university of Portsmouth.

He is the author of the textbook, Financial Accounting: a Practical Introduction, by Pearson. His second book, Financial Accounting: The Basics, by Routledge, published in 2019.

He moved to Aston in 2000 after he had an appointment with Warwick Business School. He completed his PhD in 1999 and taught a variety of subjects in Warwick between 1996-2000. He has been a member of various committees at Aston (including being the Director of the Higher Education in Learning and Management (HELM) centre 2011-2014, and the Director of the Accounting for Management 2002-2008). Ilias has held short teaching and research visiting appointments at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in ALBA Greece, in RMIT, Australia and in Deakin University, Australia. He is a member of the editorial board of the Auditing: a Journal of Practice and Theory journal, and an ad-hoc reviewer of various academic journals and international conferences.

He teaching expertise focuses mainly on financial accounting, auditing and governance where he taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels. 

His research interests lie primarily within the area of auditing and corporate governance and include the market for audit services in the private and public sectors, earnings quality and audit quality, corporate governance and audit committees, the regulation of accounting, the accounting profession. Ilias is also doing research in the accounting education area.

He was annually elected as the chairman the Auditing Group of the British Accounting & Finance Association (between 2006 and 2024) and was responsible for the organisation of the highly successful annual Audit & Assurance Conference. The Auditing Group is an international network of scholars (from PhD doctoral students to Professors) and auditing practitioners, regulators, and others such as accounting practitioners and members of the business community. The Audit & Assurance Conference is a premier event for academic and non-academic delegates who wish to hear powerful keynote speakers and international presenters representing the international auditing academia, accounting professionals in practice and in business, the professional bodies, and the standard setters and regulatory bodies. The conference provides critical exposure to significant emergent research, as well as today’s current auditing, corporate governance and assurance issues and trends in the worldwide arena of the audit and assurance markets..

As an Editor of the International Journal of Auditing, ilias was responsible to monitor and ensure the fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility of the journal’s peer-review editorial process. The Journal is a high-quality specialist journal that publishes articles from the broad spectrum of auditing. Its primary aim is to communicate clearly, to an international readership, the results of original auditing research conducted in research institutions and/or in practice. The Journal is ranked as 2* in CABS and A in ABDC.

Ilias is currently a governor in two local primary schools and in the past he has been a governor in two other different primary schools, and chaired the governing body of one. In his governor role, he is providing strategic direction and ensuring clarity of vision, and the Christian ethos were maintained in the schools. Ilias is also a qualified basketball coach, training and coaching various local basketball clubs in the past, currently with the City of Birmingham Rockets basketball club, and his sons’ school basketball club. He is also the sole onwer and part-time manager of a sailing company. 

Ilias was invited in 2019 to give oral evidence as expert witness to the UK Parliament in an Parliamentary inquiry/investigation on the future of audit that was being led by BEIS Select Committee (the ministerial Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy). His evidence was broadcasted live on the Parliament TV at https://goo.gl/PRit4u