Filipe Santos

Filipe Santos is Visiting Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. He is the Dean and Chaired Professor at Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics. He received the Schwab Foundation Social Innovation Thought Leader Award in 2019.

Prof. Santos was a full-time faculty member of INSEAD since September 2003 and left in January 2015 to lead a new government initiative called Portugal Social Innovation that aims to catalyze a social investment market in Portugal to consolidate the social entrepreneurship and innovation eco-system in the country. At INSEAD, Professor Santos led ICE - INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship from 2009 to 2013 and was the founding Academic Director of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative from 2007 to 2015.

Professor Santos’ research received more than 7500 citations in Google Scholar and has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics and California Management Review, as well as several books and book chapters. His work lies at the intersection of strategy, organization theory and entrepreneurship and focus on the emerging field of social entrepreneurship and social innovation. He is particularly interested in understanding the processes through which entrepreneurs construct new firms and markets. He is also interested in the growth and scaling up processes of new ventures in order to maximize economic and social impact. Related research interests are on business model innovation, impact investing, corporate social entrepreneurship, and family business.

Professor Santos taught courses on entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in the INSEAD MBA, EMBA and Executive Education programs and co-directed the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Program (ISEP) since 2007. He also developed the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamp which has been adopted by partners worldwide. He co-founded IES – Social Business School and the Labortatory for Social Investment in Portugal. He regularly speaks on topics of entrepreneurship, social innovation and impact investing. He also mentors entrepreneurs and advises venture investors.

A native of Portugal, Professor Santos holds a PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. He also holds an MSc. Degree in Industrial Strategy and Management from Lisbon Technical University, and an Economics degree from Lisbon New University. He was the recipient of the Lieberman Fellowship at Stanford University, an award recognizing outstanding scholarship and institutional contributions. He also received in 1996 the award for best MSc. student. His doctoral thesis "Constructing Markets and Shaping Boundaries: Entrepreneurial Action in Nascent Markets" was finalist for the Heizer 2004 Entrepreneurship Award. He received an Honourable Mention for Best Paper at the 2006 Strategic Management Society Conference and the 2008 IDEA award for Research Promise from the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division. He also won the 2008 award for Best Teacher in Elective Courses at the INSEAD GEMBA program. He was the finalist for the same award in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and received the Deans’ commendation for excellence in MBA teaching in 2010. He also received the EFMD 2012 award for best case in the Africa category with the Nuru Energy case series.

September 2019