Francesca, the First Female Full Professor at the London Business School
CORNELLI IS ALSO DIRECTOR OF PRIVATE EQUITY AT LBS. SHE GRADUATED FROM BOCCONI IN 1987Francesca Cornelli was the first woman to become a full professor at the London Business School, where she teaches finance and is director of Private Equity at LBS, an institute within the London university which conducts research and organizes forums on issues regarding private equity, venture capitals, and crowdfunding. After receiving her BA from Bocconi in 1987, Cornelli worked at Bocconi in Milan for one year as an assistant, and then in 1988 she went to Harvard to get her PhD. “With the job market I received an offer from the London School of Economics. At the time I wasn’t working in finance, but there were plenty of people around me who were interested in this area, including Oliver Hart, who was a visiting professor at the LSE. So I decided to try it myself, and requested an offer from the London Business School”.
However, she was certain that in order to deal with finance at the top she needed to go to the United States. So she took a leave of absence and went to the Wharton School in Pennsylvania, and then to the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. She has also been to the New Economic School in Moscow and the ISB in Hyderabad, India. Today she travels primarily to China and to the United Arab Emirates. “Every year I take my MBA students to Hong Kong or Dubai so that they can get a taste of the global business experience. During the week-long program they visit firms and meet leaders from the startup sector; this gives them a chance to get a close-hand look at what they are studying”. Her professional experience is balanced between theory and practice, but it goes beyond academia: Francesca Cornelli is also a board member of several companies, including Banca Intesa San Paolo, and Telecom Italia. “The knowledge gained from my research work allows me to have a direct impact on contemporary finance, and I offer that know-how through recommendations and legislation”. In 2016, she helped create AFFECT, the American Finance Association committee, which aims to promote the presence of women in academic research in the finance area.
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by Allegra Gallizia
