2026 Edition

Pedro Oliveira is Dean at Nova School of Business and Economics, where he is also Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Chair Professor. He is also Professor at Copenhagen Business School; Academic Fellow at Cornell University’s Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures; Founder of Patient Innovation; co-founder of PPL Crowdfunding and member of the Environment & Sustainability Council at EDP Energias de Portugal. Previously he was Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research; Associate Dean for Research; Director of the Research Unit in Business; Academic Director of the LisbonMBA (partnership with Católica-Lisbon, NovaSBE and MIT-Sloan); and Academic Director of the doctoral program in Technology Change and Entrepreneurship (offered by Católica-Lisbon, IST and Carnegie Mellon University) at Católica-Lisbon School of Business & Economics. He was also the founder and director of several exec ed programs. Pedro also served as advisor to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education and as an International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan School of Management. His research has been published at Production and Operations Management (POM), Research Policy, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Orphanet, New England Journal of Medicine – Catalyst, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, among other.He received his Ph.D. in Operations, Technology and Innovation Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and his M.Sc. and “licenciatura” in Naval Engineering from IST. He also completed advanced training at Harvard Business School and at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Pedro Póvoa is Dean and Full Professor of Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine at NOVA Medical School, and Coordinator of ICU4 at São Francisco Xavier Hospital, ULSLO, in Lisbon, Portugal. He holds a degree in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, specialises in Internal Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine, and holds a PhD from NOVA Medical School. He has worked in clinical research, mainly in critical care medicine, since the mid-1990s, with a current research focus on severe infections, sepsis, biomarkers, pneumonia, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and antimicrobial resistance. With more than 270 indexed publications, 44 book chapters, and 3 books, his work has been cited over 10,000 times and has reached an h-index of 50 according to Scopus data from July 2025. He was also included among the top 2% of scientists worldwide in Intensive Care Medicine in the Ioannidis ranking published in PLOS Biology in 2024. In 2003, he demonstrated that the kinetics of C-reactive protein, particularly its relative variations, could be useful in monitoring clinical evolution in critically ill patients, and he introduced the concept of CRP-ratio response patterns. Pedro Póvoa has held clinical and academic coordination roles in Portugal, Denmark, and Brazil, and has been a member of national and international scientific bodies including CEIC, FCT, and ESICM. At NOVA Medical School, he has been responsible for several curricular units, participated in the implementation of the new medical curriculum in 2011, and contributed to the creation of a teaching area in Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine. He has been a member of the Faculty General Council since 2020 and of the Scientific Council since 2021. He is also Principal Investigator of the “Immune Dysregulation, Infection and Antibiotics Resistance” research group at NOVA Medical School and, since 2017, Adjunct Professor at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Research Unit of Clinical Epidemiology at Odense University Hospital, Denmark.

António José Teixeira is the Director of Information at RTP. He graduated in Social Communication from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Nova University Lisbon. António chaired the Faculty Council of the Nova Medical School/Faculty of Medical Sciences and was the Director of SIC Notícias and Diário de Notícias. He also served on the boards of TSF and Jornal de Notícias.

Carmelo Cennamo is Professor with special responsibilities of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School, where he is Co-Director of the Entrepreneurship Concentration studies of the MBA Program. Expert on Digital Platforms, Digital Markets, Ecosystems, he studies how firms manage their interdependent activities and how they try to shape the business context where these activities take place to gain competitive advantage. His work spans different sectors including videogames, mobile apps, oil and gas, automotive, hospitality, mobility, online news, blockchain and initial coins offerings; has appeared in the top academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Management, Research Policy, as well as MIT Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and has been recognised with prestigious awards such as Best Paper Prize (finalist) from the Strategic Management Society (2014, 2018), Best Paper Award (finalist, 2017), Best Paper Proceedings (2017, 2015, 2013), Best Dissertation Award (finalist, 2011), and Distinguished Student Paper Award (2010) from the Academy of Management. A frequent keynote speaker on these topics in academic, corporate and industry events, he is also very active in the public debate on the broader impact that platforms and digital have in the modern society and economy.

Catherine da Silveira is Associate Dean for International Affairs and Partnerships at NOVA SBE. She is also Academic Director of the CEMS Master’s in International Management, International Master’s in Management, International Master’s in Finance and Double Degree Programs. She is a member of France’s Foreign Trade Advisors. Associate Professor of Marketing, Catherine da Silveira coordinates consulting projects for companies and NGOs in areas such as purpose branding and sustainable consumption. Before joining the academic world, she worked for 13 years for the L’Oréal Group as a Marketing Executive across divisions and countries. She has been coordinating the partnerships with the CEMS Alliance and with McKinsey & Company since the 7th Edition of the Estoril Conferences.

Born on January 24, 1943, in the village of Nordeste in S. Miguel, Azores. He is a Specialist in Clinical Pathology and holds a Competency in Health Unit Management. He directed the Clinical Pathology Services at H. do Desterro, H. dos Capuchos, and H. Fernando Fonseca. He began his academic career in 1975, becoming an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Universidade Nova in 1986, where he created and led the Master’s Course in Chemical Pathology (with four editions) and was the Coordinator of the Postgraduate Studies Office. In 2005, he became a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he was a visiting Full Professor at Universidade Atlântica. He presided over the Portuguese Society of Clinical Pathology, the Portuguese Society of Osteoporosis and Metabolic Diseases, and the Portuguese Society of Laboratory Medicine. He was Vice-President of the European Association of Senior Hospital Physicians and President of the National Association of Clinical Laboratories. He served two terms as the President of the Portuguese Medical Association and was a National Advisor to the National Council of Ethics for the Life Sciences. Author of numerous scientific publications and the book “History of Portuguese Medicine during the Expansion” (published by Temas e Debates/Circulo de Leitores), he is the High Commissioner for the National Health Museum. Honored with the Autonomic Insignia of Recognition from the Autonomous Region of the Azores and the Medal of Distinguished Service from the Ministry of Health – Gold Grade, he also received the Merit Medals of Angra do Heroísmo, the town of Nordeste, and the Medal of Honor from the Cascais City Council, where he was President of the Municipal Assembly. He is the owner, along with his two sons, of the Germano de Sousa Laboratory Group.

José Maria Ivo has been the Honorary Consul of Portugal in Houston since December 2017. In 1995, after 17 years of international professional experience in the engineering and construction industries related to mining, infrastructure, petrochemicals, and gas, José Ivo began his career with the Bechtel Group as the General Manager of Bechtel Chile. In 1996, he was appointed Regional Director for the Latin America Division of Mining and Metals, initially based in São Paulo and later in Santiago, Chile. In 2001, José Ivo was named Vice President of the Bechtel Group, and in 2004, he assumed the role of Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Board. In April 2008, he was elected Senior Vice President and Partner of the Group. In 2005, he took on the role of General Manager for the $6 billion Angola LNG Project, one of the largest and most challenging turnkey projects in the company’s history. In 2010, he was appointed Global General Manager of the LNG Division. From 2011 to 2014, he served as President for the Latin America Region based in Santiago, Chile. In October 2018, after a 41-year international career in the engineering and construction industry , he retired from Bechtel, having served nearly 25 years with the company. He concluded his career there as Senior Vice President in the Oil, Gas & Chemicals Division in Houston. In 2019, José Ivo was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Houston Grand Opera (HGO), one of Texas’s most important non-profit artistic institutions. José Ivo was one of the founders and is a current board member of the Portuguese Diaspora Council, where he has been involved since 2012. In 2014, he was awarded the Grand Officer of the Order of Entrepreneurial Merit by the then-President of the Republic, Prof. Dr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva. In 2019, he received the Annual Leadership Award from PALCUS, the largest national Portuguese-American association in the U.S., in recognition of his services to the Portuguese community in Texas. He is also a member of the Luso-American Chamber of Commerce, based in New York, from which he received the Outstanding Commitment award in 2023. Born in Mozambique, José Ivo holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Natal.

Karim R. Lakhani is a renowned academic and expert in innovation and technology management. He currently serves as a Professor at Harvard Business School, where he holds the position of Charles E. Wilson Professor of Business Administration. Lakhani’s research focuses on the role of digital platforms, open innovation, and crowdsourcing in driving organizational and societal change. As a prolific author, Lakhani has published extensively in prestigious academic journals and has contributed to numerous books and publications. His work explores the dynamics of innovation ecosystems, the impact of emerging technologies on industries, and the collaborative nature of problem-solving in the digital age. Lakhani has received numerous accolades and honors for his contributions to the field of innovation. He has also advised and collaborated with leading organizations across various sectors, helping them navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by technological advancements.

Keld Laursen is professor of the Economics and Management of Innovation at Copenhagen Business School and DNV-GL Professor II at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He earned his doctorate in international economics from Aalborg University. His current research focuses on open and distributed innovation processes and on organizational practices and innovation outcomes. His research has been published in outlets such as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Economic Geography and Research Policy. He is a co-editor of Research Policy and serves on the editorial boards of Strategic Management Journal and Industrial and Corporate Change. Keld Laursen is the 2017/2018 Past Chair of the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management. He is a former member of the Danish Research Council for Independent Research | Social Sciences and serves presently as a panel member at the European Research Council (ERC) for Social sciences and Humanities (SH1). Laursen is a member of the Executive Board of the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID). He serves currently on the CBS Academic Council.

Maria Antónia Almeida Santos holds a law degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lisbon and is a jurist by profession. She has served as a Deputy for the Socialist Party across multiple legislatures, representing the electoral districts of Coimbra (VII, X, XI), Lisbon (XII), Guarda (XIII), and Setúbal (XIV, XV). Currently, she is a member of the National Political Commission of the Socialist Party and serves as President of the Faculty Council at NOVA Medical School. Maria Antónia has worked as a legal consultant for the Civil Office of the President of the Republic while also practicing law in a Lisbon firm. She also served as a legal advisor in the Office of the President of the Assembly of the Republic, during which time she briefly suspended her advisory role to serve as a Deputy for the Socialist Party, elected from the Coimbra district. Additionally, she held the position of President of the Lisbon Commission for Drug Addiction Dissuasion. In recognition of her service, Maria Antónia was awarded the Order of Merit in 1996 and received a commendation from the Presidency of the Republic that same year.

Rui Diniz has been the CEO of CUF since January 2021 and an executive member of the Board of Directors of the José de Mello Group since 2013. President of the Alfredo de Sousa Foundation and member of the board of ACEGE – Christian Association of Entrepreneurs and Managers, he is also a Promoter and Founder of the Inclusive Community Forum at NOVA SBE. He began his professional career at McKinsey, where he worked for 14 years, becoming office manager in Portugal. He was Vice-President of Efacec and a non-executive director of Brisa. He holds a degree in Economics from the Portuguese Catholic University.

Sir Richard Roberts was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his pioneering work on DNA sequencing and genetic engineering. His discovery of the alternative splicing of genes had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology and led to decisive progress in many fields including cancer research. He is the Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs (Massachusetts) and has been an active supporter and member of the Patient Innovation Advisory Board, currently based at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has advocated (together with a group of Nobel laureates) for Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in general and golden rice to advance health in developing countries, noting the high safety record of genetically modified foods. He has also accepted to serve Nova School of Business & Economics as Dean’s Advisory Board member.

Portuguese diplomat at the United Nations in New York. Former diplomatic advisor to the Portuguese Minister of State and Finance and President of the Eurogroup. Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Sustainable International Business, Geoeconomics and International Relations, the module in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the Field Lab in Partnerships for Sustainable Development at Nova School of Business & Economics, with research and teaching projects in other institutions.

Ana Balcão Reis is Professor and Vice-Dean for Degree Programs at the Nova School of Business and Economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from Nova SBE. She has done research on economic growth driven by technology development and adoption. The role of human capital accumulation on economic growth has led her interest to the field of Economics of Education. Currently, her main research interests are in the area of economics of education. She has taught courses on Macroeconomics; Economic Growth and Development for the Undergraduate and Ph.D. Programs. She is now teaching Economics of Education for the Masters ´ program. Her work is published in academic journals such as the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, the European Economic Review and the Economics of Education Review.

Anne-Laure Fayard is Chaired Professor in Social Innovation at NOVA School of Business and Economics in Lisbon Portugal. She leads the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab @ Nova SBE. Her research interests involve collaboration, technology, social innovation and design. Fayard is also a Visiting Research Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She has held visiting positions at Imperial College Business School, London School of Economics and Ecole des Mines. Her research is published in leading scholarly journals and Harvard Business Review. Her work has been highlighted in major newspapers such as the New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist.

Bruno Heleno is a physician-scientist and an evidence-based practice advocate. He is interested on how to ensure that healthcare is based on patient values, clinician experience and best available evidence. He has mostly worked on the topic of prevention, particularly. His research includes studies about how harms of screening tests are assessed and reported in the scientific literature, on how patient-decision aids can be used to help people choose screening which is consistent with their values, and on how can we ensure that vulnerable populations have equitable access to screening. He is also interested on how to provide care to people with multiple chronic conditions, and how can we lever information technologies to provide care that is guided by the patients goals and expectations. He is an assistant Professor of NOVA Medical School, teaching family medicine, evidence-based practice, and research methods.

Conceição Calhau graduated in Nutrition from the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto (FCNAUP), and began her career at the Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics of the Faculty of Medicine of the same university (FMUP) in 1996, where she has taught Biochemistry, Nutrition and Food Toxicology. In 2002, she earned her Doctorate from FMUP, and in 2010, she took her public Habilitation Examination (Agregação) in the field of Metabolism at the same institution. Currently, Conceição Calhau is a Faculty member of the NOVA Medical School (NOVA MS) – Faculty of Medical Sciences of the Nova University of Lisbon, as Full Professor of Biochemistry. She is also the founder and coordinator of the recently created Graduate Degree in Nutrition Sciences and also of Master in Human Nutrition and Metabolism of the NOVA MS. She is founder and coordinator of University Unit of Lifestyle Medicine. Her main research interests focused on polyphenols, endocrine disruptors, metabolic dysfunction, on iodine nutritional state monitoring in school age children and pregnant women, which has led her to participate in several research projects with national and European funds, involving the Agriculture and Food Industry. She has published more than 220 indexed scientific articles.

Dr. Geir Arild Espnes has served as a professor for the past 25 years and has led the Public Health and Community Medicine department, as well as the Center for Health Promotion Research, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) for the last decades. He has been a leader and member of numerous international and national boards and forums, gaining recognition for substantial contributions to Public Health Research. Espnes has initiated and participated in several prominent developmental research projects in Health Promotion Research. He collaborates with esteemed universities and scholars worldwide, serving as Research Associate or Honorary Professor. He is an highly regarded lecturer. His extensive publication record includes numerous books, book chapters, and research articles. In addition, Espnes is an elected member of The Royal Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS), where he leads the Humanistic Class. Beyond academia, Espnes has been active in politics, serving as the Mayor of Oppdal from 2019 until October 2023. He is currently first deputy member of the Norwegian National Parliament for his party, serving from 2017 to 2021 and continuing his role from 2021 to 2025.

João Conde is a Group Leader, Professor and Vice-Dean for Research at NOVA Medical School, NOVA Medical Research, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. In 2014, he received his PhD in Biology with a specialization in NanoBiotechnology from the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa and the Universidad de Zaragoza as part of the FP7 European Consortium NanoScieE+- NanoTruck for the development of multifunctional gold nanoparticles for gene silencing. Following that, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Harvard-MIT Division for Health Sciences and Technology, and Queen Mary University of London’s School of Engineering and Materials Science. From 2017 to 2019, he was a Junior Investigator at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular. In 2019, he won an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council to build a genetic biobarcode to profile breast cancer heterogeneity. He is also a co-founder of the biotech company TargTex, Targeted Therapeutics for Glioblastoma Multiforme (European Innovation Council Accelerator). Since 2020, he is also part of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Consortium from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington. In 2023, he partnered with Vector Bioscience Cambridge and AstraZeneca to develop RNA-based cancer therapies from the European Innovation Council Transition. In 2023, was elected for the Scientific Advisory Board of FCT: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Since 2024, he has been on the Scientific Advisory board of Vector Bioscience Cambridge. He was also awarded several international awards, including the 2023 and 2022 World’s Top 2% Scientists list by Stanford University, the Nanomaterials 2020 Young Investigator Award, the 2021 Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator, the Top 2% Most cited in Nanoscience/ Nanotechnology from PLOS Biology, the Wellcome Image Awards 2017, the Nano-Micro Letters Researcher Award, and the National Cancer Institute Image Award.

José Tavares holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and is full professor at NovaSBE, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. José´s research on democracy, gender discrimination, and economic policy has been featured in Time magazine, the New York Times, Handelsblatt and La Repubblica, among other. In his essay “Europe Is Not A Foreign Country”, José discusses the future of Europe.

Miguel A. Ferreira is the BPI | Fundação “la Caixa” Chair Professor of Responsible Finance at Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE). He is the Vice-Dean of Faculty and Research at Nova SBE and the Academic Director of the Nova Finance Knowledge Center. He is also a research associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). He has a PhD in Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Miguel Ferreira is among the top 100 most prolific authors in top 3 finance journals of all time in the world, and he is the most cited Portuguese economist since 2000. He was the President of the European Finance Association.

Miguel Xavier is a Full Professor of Psychiatry and Mental Health at NOVA Medical School-UNL, where he also serves as Vice-Dean and Chairman of the Scientific Board. He is the Director of the National Coordination for Mental Health Policies at the Ministry of Health and has co-authored the Portuguese Mental Health Plan 2007-2016, as well as being the first author of the updated national Mental Health Plan 2017-2020. Additionally, he is a Senior Consultant in the Department of Psychiatry at Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Ocidental. Miguel has been the Principal Investigator for several multicenter projects, both nationally and internationally funded, focusing on areas such as psychiatric epidemiology, mental health policies, integrated treatment approaches to schizophrenia, family burden, psychoeducation, and forensic psychiatry. His academic contributions include over 400 presentations at scientific meetings and 120 publications in national and international journals and books.

Professor Gardete specializes in marketing strategies in contexts of high uncertainty. In his current work he studies the DRAM manufacturing industry and analyzes the use and value of market research information to aid in decision-making on significant industry investments. His research also spans the areas of truth-in-advertising, where he investigates favorable market conditions for advertising credibility to take place. A third stream of his research addresses the realm of online consumer ratings, and estimates their impact on other consumers’ opinions. He is a Full Professor of Marketing at Nova SBE and the President of the Scientific Council.

Pedro C. Vicente is a Professor of Economics at Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE), where he is also the founding scientific director of the knowledge center NOVAFRICA. He specializes in development economics and Africa. Pedro has published in leading economics journals such as the American Economic Review. His research has entailed substantial fieldwork efforts in African countries. Pedro Vicente has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.