Mª Julia Prats is Professor and Head of Department of Entrepreneurship, and Holder of the Bertrán Foundation Chair of Entrepreneurship at IESE.

Prof. Prats’s primary area of interest is the entrepreneurial process, which includes the identification, evaluation and implementation of opportunities in any context. Central to this work is developing strategies and systems that help established firms achieve profitable growth. Her second work stream focuses on understanding the key factors in building and managing professional service firms. Over the years she has had the opportunity to develop both areas of interest through teaching, research projects and consulting work.

Prof. Prats was nominated Kauffman Emerging Scholar for her dissertation work and has published in international journals and congress proceedings, both for practitioners as well as the academic community. She has also authored teaching materials and contributions to several books on entrepreneurship and strategy related topics.

She holds a DBA in business administration from Harvard University, an MBA from IESE Business School, and a degree in industrial engineering from the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. She has taught at Wharton Business School, IPADE (México), INALDE (Colombia), and AESE (Portugal).