Professor Nuno Gracias Fernandes

Nuno Fernandes is Full Professor of Finance at IESE Business School. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Auditors of the Portuguese Central Bank (Banco de Portugal), Non-Executive (Member of Audit Committee) at the European Investment Bank, and a Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute. His particular areas of interest are corporate finance, climate finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, banking, and financial strategies. 

Professor Fernandes regularly advises companies and financial institutions in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East on formulating winning financial strategies, M&As, international valuations, and risk management. 

A regular contributor to international media – including The Financial Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal – Professor Fernandes is the author of several books, including Finance for Executives: A Practical Guide for Managers (second edition), The Value Killers: How Mergers and Acquisitions Cost Companies Billions—And How to Prevent It, and Climate Finance.

His work has been honored with several awards and an FDIC grant (American regulator for financial institutions). In 2008, he was awarded the Lamfalussy Fellowship, an award given by the European Central Bank to the best researchers in finance worldwide. In 2015, he won the “Best Paper of the Year Award” in the Journal of Financial Intermediation. In 2022, he won the “Outstanding Teacher” award, in The Case Centre’s Worldwide Competition, also known as “business education’s Oscars.”

He has been published in leading international academic journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Harvard Business Review.

Prior to joining IESE, he was the Dean of Católica-Lisbon. In addition, he was, for a decade, Professor of Finance at IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland). At IMD, Professor Fernandes directed the Strategic Finance program, among other customized programs for leading international companies. He was also a member of the Advisory Committee for the World Economic Forum and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Business School (New York). Professor Fernandes has a PhD in Management (Finance) from IESE Business School, and a degree in Economics from Universidade Católica Portuguesa.