Unicorns From Deserts and Jungles

Lourdes Casanova is the Gail and Roberto Cañizares Director of the Cañizares Center for Emerging Markets and a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. Formerly of the strategy department at INSEAD, Dr. Casanova specializes in international business with a focus on Latin America and multinationals from emerging markets.

In 2014 and 2015, Dr. Casanova was named one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals by Esglobal. She is a member of the board of directors of Boyce Thompson Institute.

Dr. Casanova is a Fulbright Scholar who holds a Ph.D. from Universidad de Barcelona and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.

Veneta Andonova is Associate Professor and former Dean of the School of Management at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. She received her Ph.D. degree in Management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain. Dr. Andonova had been full-time faculty at top business schools in Latin America and at the American University in Bulgaria. Her interests lie at the intersection of business strategy and institutional analysis, with a focus on Latin American multinationals, non-market resources, and entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging markets.

Dr. Andonova’s research has been published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Socio-economics, Telecommunications Policy, Review of Law, and Economics, among others. A regular presenter at international conferences, Dr. Andonova’s most recent book, “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Unexpected Places,” was published in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Dr. Ricardo Buitrago currently serves as an Associate Research Professor in Strategy and International Management at EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey. Before joining EGADE, Dr. Buitrago held various leadership roles as Program Head and Dean at several Colombian universities and has been a Visiting Professor at multiple institutions across Latin America.

With research interests at the intersection of international political economy, institutions, strategy, and international business, Dr. Buitrago has been an editor and reviewer for various top-tier journals, including the Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, and European Management Journal, among others. He serves as an Academic Advisor for Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute and is the President of the Business Association for Latin American Studies (BALAS).

Erik Stam is a board member of Strategic Research Theme Institutions for Open Societies, Academic Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Utrecht University, and Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). Former Dean of the Utrecht University School of Economics, Professor Stam held positions at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute of Economics (Jena, Germany), IMT School for Advanced Studies (Lucca, Italy), and the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR).

Professor Stam is editor of the journals Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Small Business Economics, and Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship. A leading scholar of entrepreneurial ecosystems, he is engaged in the science and practice of entrepreneurship-led development, both locally and globally. Beyond his scientific work, Professor Stam is often consulted by governments at the local, regional, national, and international levels (European Commission, OECD, G20, African Union, World Bank) as well as by startups, investors, and corporations on innovation and entrepreneurship.