Simone
Ferriani

Simone is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Bologna, Honorary Visiting Professor at Cass Business School (City University London) and Visiting Fellow of the Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University. He earned his PhD from the Management Department of the University of Bologna, and has been a visiting scholar at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and at the Stern School of Business, New York University. After obtaining the PhD he was Post-doctoral Fellow at Cass Business School and Research Fellow at the Centre for Technology Management of the University of Cambridge. He is also a lifetime member of Clare-Hall College in Cambridge (UK) and an AIM Fellow. His research interests include entrepreneurship, creativity, processes of social evaluation and social networks. Simone is the Deputy Director of the MSc Programme in Management of the University of Bologna and was the founding Director of the Green Energy and Sustainable Businesses MBA of the Bologna Business School. Over the past 10 years Simone has served as advisor to several startups and is engaged in various initiatives designed to encourage and support students in the creation, development, and commercialization of innovative ideas. In this capacity he has been instrumental in the conception, design and implementation of ICARO, a highly innovative 5 months entrepreneurial education program developed and funded by the Golinelli Foundation to inspire entrepreneurial attitude among young university students through real business challenges. In 2015 Simone founded UNIBO Launch Pad, the first Italian University-wide entrepreneurial acceleration program designed to foster and cultivate the entrepreneurial talent of young scientists with innovative ideas rooted in their research findings. In 2019 UNIBO Launch Pad was rebranded as ReActor and scaled up at the national level.