I hate to share the sad news that my dear friend and Chapman University colleague Clas Wihlborg recently passed away in a heart attack during a walk, 73 years young. Clas was predeceased by his daughter Emma who died at the age of 21 in 2011 and leaves behind his wife of 41 years Lavinia (Lee) Wohlfert of Laguna Niguel, California, and three sisters with families in Sweden. A devastating loss also for our family, Chapman colleagues, former students, research collaborators, and a large international network of friends inside and outside of academia.
I just spoke with Lee who obviously is shaken and heartbroken as they still had many plans for the future such as finally making it to Yosemite. She welcomed that I share this update as she would only be comforted if people honored Clas for the great man that he was. If you have a favorite memory of Clas, big or small, feel free to share that in the comments below or in a private message to me or to Rita in the Dean’s office as we will compile all recollections from various sources to share with Lee in some form.
Clas was still energetic and excited last week when he drove by to personally deliver the two hair gels I had asked him to buy at H&M in Malmö, Sweden. That is the way he was, always happy to help out whether it be driving Selma to the airport, proctor an exam for me, empty my mailbox, etc, etc.
He was frustrated that our MBA Travel Course “Business in Scandinavia” that we co-founded in 2010 understandably now had to be canceled for the second summer in a row due to Covid but we looked forward to many future adventures together. Thanks to Clas’s network, we were able to set up meetings with very senior executives of all the Scandinavian central banks, many large corporations, academic institutions, etc.
Clas didn’t worry too much about things but rather kept his inner child alive to enjoy the moment and was never far away from a good laughter. During our travels, a highlight every summer was when Clas delivered an inimitable rendition of Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze” in a live karaoke session at Restaurant Noel’s in Stockholm accompanied by my brother David Myhr. Students’ jaws would also drop when they learned all the things Clas had experienced such as seeing all the celebs at Studio 54 during its hey day in NYC while accompanying Lee who then wrote for People Magazine. Or that he bumped into Cassius Clay (later known as Mohammad Ali) in a restaurant in London in the 1960’s!
I conclude with a brief bio of Clas: Clas Wihlborg joined the Argyros School faculty in 2008 and held Fletcher Jones Chair in International Business. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at Princeton University and has been a prolific author in International Finance, Institutions, and Law and Economics. He has held faculty positions in Finance and International Business at New York University, University of Southern California, Göteborg University in Sweden, University West in Sweden (Högskolan Väst), and the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Denmark, where he was Director for the Center for Law, Economics and Financial Institutions (LEFIC). Clas served on the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). He also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Lund University in Sweden. At the Argyros School, Clas founded the Chapman Conference on Money and Finance and co-founded and organized for several years the MBA Travel Course Business in Scandinavia.
Thank you Clas for all the good memories, we will miss you dearly, and say hi to Emma!
Sincerely / Niklas
Clas was a most generous, intelligent, funny, and kind person, and he maintained a child-like curiosity. He had a free and lively spirit, and I am sure that spirit lives on. He was a gracious and patient mentor, and a dear friend to me. I shall feel overwhelming loneliness as I continue with our unfinished work.
My deepest condolences for the family. Please take comfort in the fact that when Clas left this world, he was as young and vibrant as always. He spent his life imparting positive energy to the world around him.
Thank you, He, for your kind remarks honoring Clas and capturing much of his personality in your fine choice of words! Thank you for sharing in the big sense of loss we are experiencing here and I will relay your reflections to his wife.
My loving memory, my mentor Professor Clas Wihlborg:
With great sorrow, I write this notes for my mentor Professor Clas Wihlborg. It is not easy to describe, in just a few sentences, the extraordinary human and scientific personality of Prof Clas Wihlborg. He was an unattainable model to imitate, a mentor not only for me, but also for many other colleagues in Sweden, USA etc. We were first meet at the Molle Conference in Sweden and we were colleagues together at the University of West. In those years, I was a doctoral candidate in financial economics at the Linköping University and confused about how to reconcile my research interests in commodity finance with my commitments to applied time series econometrics modelling. He motivated and inspired me about my research interest. During this time, he taught me much about being a good academic scholar and pedagogical training on finance courses and even more about being a good academician for society and developing countries. I will always remember the joy of teaching closely with him in finance related courses at the University of West. I still remember every evening we went dinner together and eat “samla and coffee” in the afternoon. Our discussion topics closely related politics, societal welfare and wellbeing. Still, I missed of our discussion. I shall never be able to repay his kindness. My deepest condolences go to Professor Clas family.
Dear Gazi,
Thank you for your warm tribute to our mutual friend Clas, you beautifully capture his helpfulness and kind spirit that will always be remembered.
Sincerely / Niklas
Clas was a regular visitor to the University of Birmingham (UK) where he presented a 6-hour seminar series on ‘Market discipline in banking: Can it ever work?’.to a group of MSc students.
I first met him when I was involved in a project on Financial Sector Reform in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. It was always great fun to spend time with him and he had tremendous insights into a wide range of issues. His recent visits to Birmingham gave us the opportunity to ruminate on recent developments and I would enjoy immensely our discussion over dinner about Brexit. He was always very wise in his views on the benefits and costs of that particular decision. I also discovered that we shared a joint enjoyment of the Daily Show that sadly no longer airs on UK television. The last time I saw him was in February 2020 when he came to Birmingham. He is a tremendous loss not only to his friends and acquaintances but also to the profession. He should have had many more years to impart knowledge and I will always remember him as someone who I looked forward to seeing and regret that I won’t have that opportunity again.
My deepest condolences to Lee and all his family.
Thanks so much, David for sharing and glad that you, too, got the opportunity to enjoy great moments together with Clas! Yes, a tremendous loss not only for the family but for many friends and acquaintances around the world!
I met Class not too long after first arriving to Europe from the U.S. If my memory does not fail me, it was in May, 1994. I can say without any doubt that Clas was one of the very, very best people I met in this profession. He was always kind and helpful to me although I was a young Ph.D. barely out of school. He invited me several times to Gothenburg and during my times there he was everything a perfect host could ever be; always making sure I was enjoying my visit, always including me in whatever plans he had. His generosity was unbounded. Our friendship continued over the years, when he moved to Copenhagen Business School and then to Chapman. Although in the last few years I saw less of him, I always tried to keep in touch, always tried to find a time and place to meet with him. A lunch, dinner, or double espresso with Class was one of the highlights of any conference for me. I was in total disbelief when I learned he had passed away. I was so looking forward to seeing him during the conference he was organizing, to which he had been kind enough to invite me. That won’t happen, but nobody can take away all the fantastic memories I have with one of the very best people I ever met. I’ll miss him more than I can ever say. Godspeed, my dear friend!
Dear Javier,
Thank you so much for sharing good examples of Clas’ unbounded generosity and indeed, he did not only worry about relationships with people who were already “important” but rather he talked to and was kind to everyone he interacted with. And yes, the double espresso was very much a habit of his until the bitter end!
Sincerely / Niklas
We are so sorry to hear about this terrible news. Prof Wihlborg used to visit Macau once a year to give lectures and I could still remember he was energetic and curious to explore our small city every time. He was a nice gentleman and great friends to students and all of us.
With our sincerest condolences to his family
His friends and students from Macau
Dear Jimmy,
I apologize for the slow reply. Regardless, thank you for your message, I appreciate it, and I am not surprised to learn that he had made good friends also in Macau! I knew that he loved going there. I will share your kind note with his wife and sisters with families!
Warm regards – Niklas
What a sad message I just found! I met Clas for the first time in summer 1962: He stayed with my family in Osnabrück, Germany, for 4 weeks, after that we both traveled to Hälsingborg where I lived with his family for another 4 weeks. Theese weeks heavily influenced my love to Scandinavia. On my trip to the North Cape in 1969 I visited him (and his family) again, just for one day. Then, unfortuntely we lost sight of each other for many decades.
Meanwhile I became a professor on media technology, and at the end of the last century I started academic contacts to universities in Finland and later in Sweden. 2010 I found his mail adress in the WWW, and we got in loose mail contact. At midsummer 2011 we met again in Gränna, half the way between Stockholm and Malmö – just for an hour. He was on a trip from Malmö to Stockholm, I traveld the other direction from Uppsala back to Germany. Old friends met again…
I’m planning another Scandinavia trip next June, passing Malmö. I hoped for chance to meetimg him again. That’s why I tried to contact him. But now I found the sad information that this will never be possible… I’m so sad!
Dear Wolfgang!
Thank you for your kind message and for sharing some heartfelt memories of Clas from way back! I am sorry for you as well having lost a long-time good friend. Yes, sometimes we have those relationships that don’t need regular maintenance but you can pick up wherever you left off even if some years pass between the times you have a chance to meet. Glad you got to catch up with him also in relatively modern times! And if you go to Malmö, you can still visit his grave that he shares with his daughter Emma at Malmö Old Cemetery (Gamla Kyrkogården) by Gustav Adolfs Torg.
Warm regards – Niklas
I only found out today that dearest Clas is no longer with us. I used to be his student at CBS in Denmark. I got my Bsc and Msc degree with him as supervisor and I worked in his institute at CBS, I then started a career in finance, partly based on what he taught me and how he introduced me to the banking world.
Clas was also a dear friend and followed me throughout my life. Always found
time to met me whether in London or Paris, and even in LA when I was in town to discuss latest life and finance happenings.
He was like a father to me and I cannot express how sad it makes me to realise only now that he is gone…
I had him on the phone around the day Emma was gone, it was the day of my exam with him… I will never forget that . ..
I’m sorry for bringing sad memories .
All my love to his wife and all of you who were like me lucky enough to have him in their lifes.
Linda Agata SENYA / Paris
Dear Linda,
Thank you for your heartfelt comment and yes, we are many of us around the world missing Clas. I just forwarded your condolences to Lee and thanks for sharing your appreciation of Clas!