Ivana Naumovska is an Associate Professor at INSEAD. She is an expert on SPACs, reverse mergers, and search funds, and she is the founder and academic director of INSEAD’s Hub for Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) and Search Funds.
At INSEAD, Professor Naumovska teaches in degree and executive programs on topics of entrepreneurship, corporate governance, and investor decision making. Recognized for pedagogical excellence, she has been awarded the Dean's Commendation for Excellence in Teaching and has won the Best Teaching Award multiple times. Her expert opinions are regularly featured in leading business media such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNBC, Barron's, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
Professor Naumovska's research examines the antecedents and consequences of the adoption of new and sometimes counter-normative organizational practices and innovations, in both established firms and startups. By explicitly considering the role of the institutional environment, social biases and market learning, she seeks to understand how firms and their stakeholders (i.e., investors, media, competitors, executives, and board members) affect and are affected by these organisational practices.
Professor Naumovska’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Review of Finance, Strategic Management Journal, and Academy of Management Annals; it has also received numerous prestigious recognitions and awards, including Best Dissertation Award from the Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, and multiple Best and Distinguished Paper Awards from the Academy of Management and the Strategic Management Societies.
Professor Naumovska is an Associate Editor at the Strategic Management Journal and has been an elected Representative at Large of the Behavioral Strategy, Corporate Strategy, and Competitive Strategy Interest Groups at the Strategic Management Society. She completed a Postdoc at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She holds a Ph.D. in Management and Finance (cum laude) as well as an MSc in Finance (cum laude) from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, and a BSc in Financial Economics from Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University (cum laude).
