Biography

Belén Villalonga joined New York University Stern School of Business as an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations in September 2012. She will teach a course on family business management.

Professor Villalonga’s work focuses on the financial, strategic, governance and valuation issues faced by family businesses. She has written several articles on how family ownership and control influence the management and governance of firms as well as, ultimately, their performance. She has also studied extensively the area of corporate diversification and the mechanisms that families can use to open their equity to outside investors without losing control of their businesses. Her award-winning research has been published in leading academic journals and cited over 750 times in academic publications, and has been featured on CNBC, NPR, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Economist, Expansión, Financial Times, Forbes, International Herald Tribune and many other international business publications. Prior to joining Stern, Professor Villalonga was a faculty member at Harvard Business School from 2001 to 2012. In 2010 she received the Harvard Business School Wyss Award for excellence in mentoring doctoral students. Since 2006, Professor Villalonga has been serving as an independent director on the board of Acciona, a family-controlled Fortune Global 500 company in the infrastructure and renewable energy businesses. Before entering graduate school she worked at McKinsey & Co. in Paris.

Professor Villalonga received a B.A. in Economic and Management Sciences from the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros in Madrid and an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Management from the University of California at Los Angeles. She also holds a second Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid. She is fluent in English, Spanish and French, and conversant in Portuguese and Italian.

Research Interests

• Family business
• Diversification
• Corporate governance
• Corporate strategy
• Corporate finance

Courses Taught

• Managing Family Businesses

Academic Background

Ph.D., Management, 2001
University of California, Los Angeles

Ph.D., Economic and Management Sciences, 2000
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

M.A., Economics, 1998
University of California, Los Angeles

B.A., Economic and Management Sciences, 1991
Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros, Madrid

Awards & Appointments

Academy of Management Association	Distinguished Paper Award, Glueck Best Paper Award, Business Policy and Strategy Division	2012
Harvard Business School	Junior Faculty Recipient, Wyss Award for Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students	2010
European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)	Standard Life Investments Finance Prize for the best paper in the Finance Working Paper series	2007
INSEAD	André Hoffman Visiting Professor of Family Enterprise	2007
Acciona	Independent Director, 2006 - present	2006
Harvard Business School	Associate Professor, Finance Unit, 2006 - 2012	2006
Family Firms Institute	Best Unpublished Research Paper Award	2006
Journal of Finance	First Prize, 2004 Brattle Prize for outstanding papers	2005
Financial Management	First Prize, 2002-2004 Addison-Wesley Prize for the best papers	2004
Harvard Business School	Assistant Professor, Finance Unit, 2001 - 2006	2001

Selected Publications

Villalonga, Belén, and Raphael Amit (2010)
Family control of firms and industries
Financial Management, 39 (3), 863–904

Villalonga, Belén, and Raphael Amit (2009)
How are U.S. family firms controlled?
Review of Financial Studies, 22 (8), 3047-3091

Villalonga, Belén, and Raphael Amit (2006)
How do family ownership, control, and management affect firm value?
Journal of Financial Economics, 80 (2), 385–417

Villalonga, Belén, and Anita McGahan (2005)
The choice among acquisitions, alliances, and divestitures
Strategic Management Journal, 26 (13), 1183–1208

Villalonga, Belén (2004)
Diversification discount or premium? New evidence from the Business Information Tracking Series
Journal of Finance, 59, 479–506

Villalonga, Belén (2004)
Does diversification cause the ‘diversification discount’?
Financial Management, 33 (2), 5–27

Belén Villalonga and Harold Demsetz (2001)
Ownership structure and corporate performance
Journal of Corporate Finance, 7, 209–233