Athan Zafirov

Skilled Financial Analyst and Researcher Dimitri Zafirov Dimitri Zafirov, a doctoral candidate at UCLA Anderson School of Business, serves as a research assistant for HEC Montreal. In this role since the end of 2016, Dimitri Zafirov assists professors Erika Deserranno, Decio Coviello, and Nicole Persico in collaboration with Northwestern-Kellogg in analyzing the effects of minimum wage changes on employee and store outcomes and linking performance, turnover, geography, revenue, and HR data.

Prior to joining this team, he served as an analyst for Letko-Brosseau & Associates in Montreal and as a research assistant for the Institute of Applied Economics for HEC Montreal on multiple occasions. He is also a former analyst intern for CDP Quebec Pension. These positions gave him valuable experience in complex tasks like analyzing employment cyclicality and developing forecast models.

To supplement his practical experience, Dimitri Zafirov earned several degrees, including a diploma of college studies in computer science technology at Dawson College and a bachelor’s degree in finance from John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He subsequently earned a master’s in applied economics from the Institute of Applied Economics at HEC Montreal before enrolling at UCLA to work on a PhD in accounting. As a graduate student, Dimitri Zafirov graduated with a GPA of 4.1 out of 4.3 and was nominated for the Best Master’s Thesis in 2015 out of all M.Sc. programs.