The Faculty

The Foundation’s trainings are based on the business-case method and are delivered by experienced instructors who are selected according to two main criteria:

They have led or contributed to the development of training materials for the Foundation, its initiatives, or other training materials. These include authoring the case studies, serving as the protagonist in the case studies, or having a strong, proven association with the materials.
They are experienced educators and policy actors who have undergone intensive training in each case study and other teaching materials and have become fully conversant with the Foundation’s delivery methodology. Previous proven experience with the case method is a prerequisite for entering the training.

For each training program, the Faculty is selected from the Foundation’s permanent roster of professors on the basis of objective criteria. The final list for each program is compiled in consultation with the training program’s funders (clients).

Faculty Roster

The Foundation has a roster of qualified faculty members who can teach the cases in multiple languages upon request. Local professors can be included if they have certified knowledge of the case studies. See the faculty who have participated in the training over the past 15 years.

Pascual Berrone

IESE Business School

Pascual Berrone

IESE Business School

Pascual Berrone is professor of strategic management and Schneider Electric Chair of Sustainability and Business Strategy at IESE Business School. Also, Prof. Berrone is the academic director of the Executive MBA in Madrid. He is also vice-president of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management. Prof. Berrone earned a B.Sc. in business administration from the Universidad Católica de Córdoba, holds a senior degree in management and international business from the FUNCER Business School, and completed his Ph.D. in business administration and quantitative methods degree at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Maria Luisa Blazquez

IESE Business School

Maria Luisa Blazquez

IESE Business School

Maria Luisa Blazquez is a Professor at the University of Comillas and a Research Associate at the International Center for Competitiveness (ICC), IESE Business School, where she lectures on strategy and leads several projects for public and private institutions on the competitiveness of regions and countries. She has participated as a lecturer in Foundation's projects in more than 15 countries. Her research and publications mainly focus on competitiveness and cluster' roles. She holds an MBA from MIT and a Ph. D. from ICADE in clusters and their role in regional competitiveness.

Emiliano Duch

Emiliano Duch recently retired from the World Bank, where he was the Global Lead in Private Sector Development. Before joining the bank, he was in the IESE Business School, as Director of its Competitiveness Summer School and Coordinator of the European Union's Cluster Excellence Initiative (ECEI). He was also the CEO of The Cluster Competitiveness Group and the founding chairman of The Competitiveness Institute (TCI). He has a degree in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, an MPA and an MBA from Harvard University.

Gloria Ferrer

Northeastern University, Boston

Gloria Ferrer

Northeastern University, Boston

Gloria is an Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University in Boston and a partner at COMPETITIVENESS. She has extensive experience in international and sustainable development, strategic analysis, international business, consulting, and capacity building across the public, private, and non-profit sectors in more than 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She holds an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, an MBA from Esade Business School, and is currently a Master in Sustainability candidate at Harvard Extension School.

Christian Ketels

The World Bank

Christian Ketels

The World Bank

Dr. Christian Ketels is currently serving as Lead Economist in the World Bank and is a global expert on competitiveness, cluster-based economic development and strategy. 20+ years faculty member at Harvard Business School, leading the the research team at Prof Michael E Porter's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. His specialties include: Consulting to governments, international organizations, and business networks on regional and national competitiveness, cluster development, and microeconomic policies. Consulting to companies on business unit strategy, evaluations of market structure and attractiveness, and locational choice.

Blair Lapres

Blair Lapres is an economic strategy consultant with over 15 years of experience at the intersection of public policy and market strategy. His work focuses on how evolving market dynamics reshape industries and how governments and firms can translate these shifts into sustained competitive advantage. He has advised senior policymakers and business leaders across advanced and emerging markets. Previously, he served as an economist at the World Bank, designing policies and investment programs to strengthen productivity, innovation, and long-term economic growth.

Werner Pamminger

Business Upper Austria

Werner Pamminger

Business Upper Austria

Werner Pamminger is an international and renowned expert in cluster management.
He is ther CEO of Business Upper Austria, the State agency promoting investment and regional development through funding for research, technology, innovation, technology transfer, cluster collaboration, collaborative R&D and high-tech start-ups and is considered as a role model of excellent and successful cluster management within Europe.
He is on boards of international organizations for competitiveness and clusters, he is also a former board-member of TCI network.
Werner holds an M.Sc. in Automation Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Wels (Austria) and an MBA in International Finance from the University of Toronto (Canada).

Enric Pedros

FEMAC

Enric Pedros

FEMAC

Enric is the manager of FEMAC and the Cluster of Agricultural Production Means in Catalonia both take up the challenge to contribute to more sustainable global agriculture. This will help to create a more competitive environment and future for companies and institutions that comprise the cluster, through Innovation, Internationalisation and Cooperation.

Alberto Pezzi

ACCIO

Alberto Pezzi

ACCIO

Alberto is a Cluster practitioner and competitive strategy expert with over 25 years of experience in cluster-based economic development and competitiveness reinforcement initiatives in over 20 industries. He is the senior manager of cluster at ACCIÓ the competitiveness agency of the Goverment of Catalonia. Formed initially as strategic consultant in international firms, he has dedicated the last 20 years to the design and implementation of public policies for improving regional competitiveness using cluster-based initiatives.

Tomislav Rimac

Tomislav Rimac is Director of two entrepreneurship research centres at ESCI-UPF School of International Business in Barcelona. His work focuses on using entrepreneurship for social change and sustainable development, especially business models, strategies, institutions, and governance for social innovation. He has led major EU-funded projects (SELUSI, SEFORÏS), collaborated with the OECD, and previously founded a social enterprise in Toronto, with experience in Canadian banking and international IT and engineering consultancy. Tomislav holds a PhD from IESE Business School.

Inés Sagrario

Inés Sagrario is a Partner at COMPETITIVENESS. She has worked in South and South-East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Ms. Sagrario has extensive experience leading competitiveness projects in a broad array of sectors, although over the past decade she has specialized significantly in agro and food-related projects. Her expertise in agtech has led her into entrepreneurship, co-founding Ekonoke, an indoor farming start-up in Madrid.

Martin Scholten

Martin Scholten Dr. Martin C. Th. Scholten (Wageningen University; Aarhus University, Scotland's Rural College) is principle 'science to policy' advisor. Amongst many other positions, he was in the board of Wageningen University, first president of the European public-private innovation platform "Animal Task Force" and co-chair of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.

Meriem Ait Ali Slimane

Meriem Ait Ali Slimane is a Lead Economist in the Innovation Department of the World Bank Group. Previously, Meriem co-led the Jobs Accelerator in South Asia, an initiative designed to support governments in unlocking growth and employment in job-rich sectors through sectoral analytics and public-private dialogues. Meriem holds master's degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA/ID) and École Centrale Paris, as well as an Industrial Engineering degree from École Nationale Polytechnique in Algeria.

Ekin Taskin

TABU Solutions, Türkiye

Ekin Taskin

TABU Solutions, Türkiye

Ekin Taşkın is a leading expert in cluster excellence, innovation ecosystems, and industrial transformation with over 20 years of international experience across Europe and Türkiye. As General Manager of TABU Solutions, he has led EU-funded programmes supporting SME internationalisation, value chain development, and institutional capacity building across sectors including automotive, renewable energy, textiles, and agribusiness. An accredited ESCA Benchmarking Expert and EFCE trainer, he currently advises Bursa Automotive and İnegöl Furniture clusters on governance, strategy, and global competitiveness.

Henri Varlet

Henri is a regional economic development specialist and Communities & Social Performance practitioner with extensive experience across five continents. He collaborates with governments, multilaterals, and industry to design and implement strategies that drive competitiveness, economic diversification, and shared value.

A long-time trainer with the European Foundation for Cluster Excellence, he has delivered programmes in over 25 countries. Currently with Rio Tinto, he integrates ESG commitments into practical initiatives spanning local content, SME development, and market systems to foster resilient economies beyond life-of-mine.

Henri holds a joint master's degree in international business law and management from EDHEC (Lille, France) and an MBA from INSEAD (Singapore and Fontainebleau). His working languages are French, English and Spanish.

James Wilson

Emily Wise

Reza Zadeh

Reza Zadeh is a Trustee of the Foundation for Clusters and Competitiveness. He has extensive expertise on cluster-based economic development, globally. A former UK public servant, his professional background encompasses over three decades of experience in designing and implementing policies that drive competitiveness and economic development through innovation systems. Reza is a technologist with a joint MBA from Cranfield School of Management, UK and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.