Chairs

• The Solvay SA Chair of Innovation 

The Solvay SA Chair of Innovation is the very first Chair funded by a company within the Faculty. Created in 1998 at the initiative of Baron Daniel Janssen, the primary purpose of this Chair is to create intellectual capital in the field of technological innovation. The scope of the Chair includes the micro and macro effects of technological innovations well as the analysis and study of innovation management within companies and society in general. Classes are taught at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and at INSEAD, in order to promote and support scientific research and academic collaboration between the two institutions. 

Chair Director: Bruno VAN POTTELSBERGHE 

• The Léo Goldschmidt Chair of Corporate Governance 

The Leo Goldschmidt chair in Corporate Governance has been established to develop and disseminate knowledge on corporate governance. Its subject covers the vast field of institutional and cultural mechanisms that foster the proper working of enterprises and their interaction with their stakeholders. It lends itself to as much to theoretical research as it does to practical applications; it is implicitly or explicitly translated into legal, regulatory, voluntary or spontaneous provisions, and is the object of wide political and social debate. The chairholder takes an active part in teaching and research as well as in relevant public and private discussions. 

Chair Director: Marco BECHT 

• The Euroclear Chair in Sustainable Finance 

The Euroclear chair in sustainable finance has been created to undertake research, teaching and create wider societal impact via outstanding policy work. The Solvay Brussels School is grateful to count on the support and partnership of Euroclear for the creation of this new research Chair. The chair fits into the School’s strategic goal of becoming a leader in sustainably financing the transformations of our society. The aim of the chair is to produce outstanding research with high policy impact, create meaningful and impactful events and workshops, and train future generations of sustainability leaders.

Chair Director: Dr. Guntram Wolff 

• The InBev-Baillet Latour Chair of Error Management 

The Baillet-Latour Chair of Error Management at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management was created to study a much-neglected topic: how to deal with strategic and organisational errors at the senior executive and board level, and more specifically how to prevent errors from leading organisations down a downward or even fatal path. The Chair aims to develop theories, concepts, insights, and frameworks to detect and manage errors so they’re potentially damaging and even dramatic consequences can be avoided or minimised. 
 
Errors of interest are unintended deviations from rules, codes of conduct, or good principles that result in adverse consequences of strategic magnitude. They may originate at either the operational or executive level. We are primarily interested in the challenge facing senior executives, executive committee members, CEOs, and board members in 1) spotting, detecting, identifying, and acknowledging corporate errors and 2) dealing with errors found and their consequences, by implementing corrective actions and remedies. 

Given the nature of the topic and the organisational and strategic perspectives taken, our research covers various fields and disciplines of management research, including strategy, leadership, organisational behaviour, and corporate governance, and touches on various other topics such as decision analysis and risk management. 

The objective is two fold:
1) produce world-class research involving theory development, hypothesis building, and empirical validation through a variety of approaches including surveys, interviews, case studies, simulations, and grounded theory; and
2) alert executive and board level leadership in companies, non-profits, and other organisations to the importance of the topic, raise interest in the issue, and provide useful insights, tools, and approaches to detect and handle errors in organisations so as to minimise their potential damaging or fatal impact. In so doing, the research intends to contribute to the quality of management and leadership in organisations for the benefit of people, businesses, and the community at large. 
 

• The Family Janssen Chair of Corporate Social Responsability  

This Chair provides students enrolled in a PhD, Master in Business Engineering, MBA, or Executive Education programme with a critical assessment of the social, economic, and environmental role of businesses in both the commercial and non-commercial sectors. Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to debate these topics with company directors and trade union or NGO officials. 
 

• Chair of Sustainable Human development

The Marie and Alain Philippson Chair of Global Entrepreneurship focuses on innovative teaching and training courses or programmes on launching and financing high-impact and high-growth ventures, start-ups.’ It aims to prepare future leaders to build and effectively finance successful new global start-ups in today’s increasingly challenging business landscape. The Chair offers opportunities for students to acquire the critical analytical skills necessary to properly assess opportunities and risks as well as to make sound investment and management decisions. It further aims to develop the visionary, yet pragmatic, leadership skills required to create a business and inspire confidence at all stages of a new venture. Moreover, the Chair offers innovative follow-up programmes to stimulate experience in learning balancing in-class teaching with fieldwork, with the Silicon Valley Immersion (SVI) Week Programme. 

Chair Director: Philip VERWIMP 

• The Kurgan-van Hentenryk Chair of Business History 

The purpose of this Chair, supervised by the ULB Foundation, is to conduct high-level research in the field of business history. The Chair’s research focuses on the comparative analysis of the origins, development, and consequences of the science and technology-based industry that has emerged as a global phenomenon starting in the 1970s. In terms of research diffusion, the Chair intends to give students learning tools and the latest insights on business history, within SBS-EM and Philosophy and Social Sciences’ faculties. Lastly, demonstrating its commitment towards research communication, it aims to initiate a wide range of scientific activities to foster the public development of business history and enhance the interest of scholars, experts, and business players in this field. 

Chair Director: Kenneth BERTRAMS 

• The Bernard Van Ommeslaghe Chair of Economics of Regulation 

Since the year 2000, thanks to the continued support of the “Bernard Van Ommeslaghe Chair”, our Research center ECARES has been able to promote research and training activities on the topic of market regulation and liberalisation. Several prominent academic speakers have come to ECARES as a result. The Bernard Van Ommeslaghe Chair has also allowed ECARES to provide more direct support to young researchers. 

Bernard Van Ommeslaghe holds degrees from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While pursuing a high-level career in the private sector, as President of Bureau Van Dijk, he has been actively involved in the academic and public sectors. He is Professor Emeritus at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and was a Member of the Belgian Banking and Finance Commission, as well as of the group of experts on the liberalisation of the energy sector. His commitment to our University and his interest for the issue of market liberalisation and deregulation has led him to sponsoring a Chair dedicated to this topic. Thanks to his generous support, ECARES has received resources that it can use to develop research and training activities in this area, in accordance with its double mission of academic research and doctoral training. 

Chair Directors: Mathias DEWATRIPONT and Antonio ESTACHE