Paolo Aversa
Full Professor of Strategy
Bayes Business School – City, University of London
Other appointments:
The Jonas Persson Visiting Professor – Center for Sport and Business at the Stockholm School of Economics
Fellow – Center for Automotive and Mobility Innovation (CAMI) University Ca’ Foscari in Venice
Communications Director and Appointed Officer – Strategic Management – STR Division, Academy of Management.
Visiting Professor – Bologna Business School; University of Trento, Luxembourg School of Business
Please find my complete cv here.
Paolo Aversa is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Strategy and Director of the Full Time MBA at Cass Business School, visiting Professor at the University of Trento (Italy). He is also Fellow of the Center for Automotive and Mobility Innovation (CAMI) at University Ca’ Foscari in Venice (Italy), and Research Fellow at the Center for Sport and Business at the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden). At Cass he teaches strategy and innovation-related subjects at the Full Time MBA, the Executive MBA in Dubai, the MSc in Management, the PhD in Management, and he collaborates with Cass Executive Education. Paolo originally joined Cass thanks to a IEF Marie Curie Fellowship (2012-2014).
Before joining Cass, Paolo worked as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Management Department of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he also held a visiting scholar position at the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center.
His general research interests are related to determinants of performance in technology-based settings characterised by fierce competition and changing environments. He investigated the interplay of innovation, business models, and alliances on firm performance. He is considered one of the leading academic experts in the motorsport industry and his empirical fields of research are often based on Formula 1, motorcycles, and automotive. His recent academic works are published in Organization Science, Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Advances in Strategic Management, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, among others.
He is Director of Communications and Appointed Officer of the Strategic Management “STR” Division (formerly known as BPS), of the Academy of Management. He serves in the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Discovery and as ad-hoc reviewer for most top journals in the field of management and strategy.
His research featured around 300 times around the world in international media, including in the Financial Times, New York Times, BBC, Sky, Forbes, Reuters, Sunday Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The National, ESPN, City AM and the Sydney Morning Herald, and in most sport-related outlets. In 2014 he was selected as runner-up for the prestigious ‘“EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Communicating Science Prize” which shortlists the 10 Marie-Curie funded scientific projects that excelled in the outreach to the general public, had the widest coverage in mainstream media, and displayed the most innovative approach to dissemination. Out of the 10 finalists he was the only one from social science.

Paolo received several awards for his research, teaching and impact. In 2018 he was listed among the World’s Best 40 under 40 Professors by Poets and Quant and received the “Talented Young Italians” award for Research and Innovation from the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK and the Italian Embassy in London. Also in 2018 he was nominated for the Best Paper Award at the SMS Annual Conference in Paris (France). In 2017 he was finalist for the City University President’s Award in the category “Outstanding Research Engagement – Media and Outreach”. In 2015 he won the First Prize for the SIIE-EBS Best-Paper-Award “Innovation Management” for his work published in Organization Science. Also in 2015, he was finalist for City Research competition and nominated among the “Marie-Curie Fellows of the Week”. He was awarded for 8 times the Best Reviewer Award of Academy of Management (5 times in the Technology and Innovation Division and 3 times in the Business Policy and Strategy Division). In 2011 Paolo received the Best Doctoral Paper Award of the European Academy of Management (EURAM). In 2009 he led the University of Padova racing team to winning the business plan competition at the Formula SAE Germany.
He collaborates with several universities and institutions (among others CUOA Business School and Bologna Business School) and he often presents his works and industry analyses in international conferences, firms, and institutions – including the House of Commons, among others. He works and consults for companies within and outside the racetrack.
Paolo loves adrenaline sports and activities, riding his Ducati motorcycle, drawing caricatures and comics, playing guitar, singing, going to rock concerts, and cooking (and eating) Italian food.
