Smart City Observatory

Arturo Bris is Professor of Finance at IMD. Since January 2014 he is also leading the world-renowned IMD World Competitiveness Center.

At IMD he directed the Advanced Strategic Management program from 2009-2014. He has directed programs for senior executives in several industries and continents. Prior to joining IMD, Professor Bris was the Robert B & Candice J. Haas Associate Professor of Corporate Finance at the Yale School of Management (USA). A Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute, and a member of the Yale International Institute for Corporate Governance, he has worked extensively on issues of Corporate Governance, Financial Regulation, and International Valuation.

His research and consulting activities focus on the international aspects of financial regulation, and in particular on the effects of bankruptcy, short sales, insider trading, and merger laws. Arturo Bris has also researched and lectured on the effects of the Euro on the corporate sector, as well as on the valuation impact of corporate governance changes.

Arturo is passionate about global competitiveness, financial development and macroeconomics. His latest research identifies the relationship between income inequality, social mobility and competitiveness. He is also developing a competitiveness-based investment portfolio that track the best and worst economies.

His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Legal Studies, and the Journal of Business, among others. His latest book, Blockchange! provides insights on how to survive the crypto economy.

Professor Bris taught Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at Yale from 1998 to 2005, where he received the Best Teacher Award twice. His consulting experience includes companies in both the US and Europe.

He is the President of the Board of Trustees of the IMD Pension Foundation, and a member of the Supervisory Board of the International School of Lausanne. He is a frequent speaker in international conferences, and appears regularly on international media outlets.

Professor Arturo Bris ranks among the top one hundred most-read finance academics in the world. He graduated in Law and Economics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and received an MSc from CEMFI (Foundation of the Bank of Spain). He holds a PhD in Management from INSEAD. He enjoys reading, road- and mountain-biking, and playing bass guitar.

Bruno Lanvin has been the President of the Smart City Observatory since its creation in 2018.

After a distinguished career that took him from the United Nations, the World Bank and INSEAD, he joined IMD in 2018. He is known worldwide for his pioneering work in creating and co-leading some of the most highly praised global indices in the areas of information technology, innovation and talent. Over the last few years, he has been focusing his research on the role of cities in developing original strategies and shaping new types of global relations.

A mathematician by training (Université de Valenciennes), an MBA (HEC, Paris) and a PhD in Economics (Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, he is passionate about informing international debates (inequality, inclusion, governance, collaborative innovation, talent and labour markets, impact of artificial intelligence) through the provision of quantitative tools and action-oriented metrics.