Who we are

Joan Manuel Batista-Foguet, is since 1995 Full Professor at the Department of Quantitative Methods in ESADE Business School, of University Ramón Llull, and former Research Director of ESADE (2001-2008).

He is the current Director of the Leadership Development Research Centre at ESADE. He has degrees In industrial Engineering (Polytechnic University of Catalonia (1975) and in Psychology from the University de Barcelona (1982). He also has a Master degree in Social Sciences Data Analysis from the University of Essex and earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1982. He has also a diploma on Management from ESADE (1990) and on Leadership Development from CASE Western Reserve University. He is accredited coach by HAY group (US).

Since 1975, he has been Lecturer and Associate Professor of Statistics at the School of Engineers (Polytechnic University) and at the Faculty of Psychology (Universitat de Barcelona). His fields of interest are the improvement of the Conceptualization and Measurement in Social Sciences from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives, with applications to Social and Emotional Competences of individuals and of teams, Attitudinal Research, Branding, Service Quality, Quality of Life, Well-Being, Schoolchildren habits, subjects on which he has been and still is Principal Investigator of various research projects. He has also published various books and articles in leading journals worldwide.

Richard Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor, as well as Professor in the Departments of Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University and Adjunct Professor at ESADE. He is the author of more than 150 articles and books on leadership, competencies, EI, and change from a complexity perspective, including: The Competent Manager (in 12 languages); Primal Leadership with Daniel Goleman and Annie McKee, in 28 languages; Resonant Leadership, with Annie McKee (in 18 languages); Becoming a Resonant Leader, with Annie McKee and Francis Johnston (in 8 languages), and Transforming Qualitative Information (in 2 languages).

Professor Boyatzis’ current research includes several fMRI studies into the neural systems activated when engaged in Intentional Change efforts of arousing the Positive Emotional Attractor, as well as resonant versus dissonant leadership. He is also involved in numerous research studies of coaching, doctor-patient relationships and teacher-student relationships that foster sustained, desired change. His current writing includes exploration of Intentional Change Theory as it explains sustained, desired change at all levels of human functioning, from individual, to dyad, to team, to organization, to community, to country and global change.

Prior to becoming a professor in 1987, he had been President and CEO of McBer and Company (a research oriented human resource consulting company) for 11 years and COO of Yankelovich, Skelly & White (a market research company) for 3 years. During these years he worked on various projects from treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts to the development of competency based human resource systems and competency assessment validation. Prior to that he had been a psychologist for the Veterans Administration.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his Masters and PhD from Harvard University in Social Psychology.

Vanessa Urch Druskat is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Management at the Whittemore School of Business & Economics at the University of New Hampshire in the USA.  She holds a Ph.D. in Social & Organizational Psychology from Boston University, an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Psychology from Indiana University.

Her current research interests include: work team effectiveness, team leader effectiveness, and the influence of emotional and social competence in work teams and team leaders.

PhD in Management Sciences from Ramon Llull University. Undergraduate Degree and Master in Business Administration from ESADE. Degree in Law from the University of Barcelona. Diploma from JFK School of Government (Harvard University). As a recent graduate in 1979, he joined several other partners to set up Kernel, a company in the IT sector. He later worked in the Generalitat de Catalunya, where he held various management and political positions. He has always maintained close ties with the non-profit sector and has belonged to various governing bodies of non-profit organisations. In 1986, he began his academic career in the Department of Business Policy at ESADE Business School. He lectured in Executive Functions, Strategy and Organisation, which he combined with strategic consulting. In 1997, he joined the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC. In 2000, he returned to ESADE as Director General, a position he held until 2010. During this period, he served as a member of various boards of directors and government bodies. He currently combines his academic activities in addition to his involvement with various government bodies, among which are the boards of Gas Natural Fenosa, SFL (France) and the European company InnoEnergy, as well as the Board of Trustees of the university foundations Universidad Loyola Andalucía and Fundació Privada Xavier

Dr. Thomas Maak is Professor for Leadership and Responsibility in the Human Resource Management Department at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Previously a faculty member and Professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland he also co-directed from 2004 to 2008 a research stream within the PwC-INSEAD initiative on high-performing organizations at INSEAD, France. A management graduate from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, he received his Ph.D., summa cum laude, from the University of St. Gallen. He held visiting positions at Columbia University, New York and at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His award-winning research and teaching focuses on business ethics, corporate citizenship, integrity management, responsible leadership and HRM. Thomas has been a member of the Executive Committee of the European Business Ethics Network EBEN (2002-2010) and is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Business, Ethics and Economics ISBEE (since 2009).

He serves as Associate Editor at the Journal of Business Ethics (FT45/BW20). As consultant and advisor he has worked with leading corporations such as Shell, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Volkswagen and DONG Energy. Among his book publications are “Responsible Leadership” (with Nicola Pless; London/New York: Routledge, 2006; Russian transl., Moscow: Alpina Business Books, 2008), “Integre Unternehmensführung. Ethisches Orientierungswissen für die Wirtschaftspraxis” (with Peter Ulrich; Stuttgart: Schäffer-Poeschel, 2007), for which he received the Max-Weber-Award 2008, and the forthcoming "Responsible Leadership: Value Creation in a Connected World (Cambridge University Press; with Nicola Pless).

Dr. Robert Emmerling is a Visiting Professor at ESADE (University Ramón Llull) since 2009. He currently teaches and conducts research in the Management Sciences program where he lectures on the topic of Thematic Analysis and Applied Qualitative Research Methods.

Through his work as a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, a group founded by Dr. Daniel Goleman, he has been involved in some of the most influential work in the field of competencies and emotional intelligence, including the development of best practice guidelines for training and developing emotional intelligence (Cherniss, Goleman, Emmerling, Cowan, & Adler, 1998), and the identification and evaluation of model programs that significantly enhance social and emotional competencies in the workplace.

Dr. Emmerling’s current research interest include evaluation of executive education and leadership development programs with a focus on the assessment and development of emotional and social competencies (ESC) and linking ESCs to organizational performance metrics, including analysis of Return on Investment (ROI). In addition, his interests also include the effect of culture on the assessment and development of ESC, emotional dynamics of vocational choice, executive assessment using the Critical Incident Interview (CII) technique and projective methods such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

He is also a founding member of Competency International, a research and consulting group dedicated to the application of scientifically validated techniques to the management of human capital in organizations and committed to advancing the science of motive and emotional intelligence competency assessment, application and development. He has provided consultation on these issues to companies around the world including Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LSG Sky Chefs, Brocade Communications, Ameriprise Financial Advisors, TATA Autocomp Systems (India), Hindustan Petroleum (India) and Hess Corporation.

Dr. Emmerling is also co-editor of the newly released book Emotional Intelligence: Theoretical and Cultural Perspectives, publishedin 2008 by Nova Science Publishers. He is also the creator and webmaster of the world’s most visited website related to emotional intelligence (www.eiconsortium.org) which has received over 8 million visitors since being launched in 1998. Robert holds a Doctorate in Organizational Psychology from Rutgers University and is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Indian Forum for Emotional Intelligence Learning (FEIL).

Es profesor del Departamento de Dirección de Recursos Humanos de ESADE desde 1982. Actualmente, es director de innovación pedagógica y aprendizaje. Dirige también el programa de evaluación y desarrollo de competencias directivas (programa LEAD).

Ha desarrollado toda su actividad profesional en el campo de la dirección de personal, en la triple faceta de académico, directivo y consultor. Como académico, ha impartido sucesivamente cursos de relaciones laborales, dirección estratégica de recursos humanos, dirección internacional de recursos humanos, liderazgo y desarrollo de competencias directivas. Fue director del Departamento de Dirección de Recursos Humanos de ESADE y adjunto al decano para la política de profesorado.

Como directivo, fue director de planificación y, posteriormente, director de personal de Cia. Anma. Hilaturas de Fabra y Coats.

Fue consultor sénior y director de la práctica de planificación y desarrollo de recursos humanos de Hay Group. Ha asesorado y realizado trabajos de consultoría para organizaciones tanto del sector privado como del sector público y ONL.

Es miembro del Patronato y del Consejo Asesor de la Fundació Pere Tarrés.

Laura Guillén joined ESMT European School of Management and Technology as an assistant professor in September 2010. She received her PhD in Organizational Studies with a specialization in organizational behavior from ESADE in 2007. Laura also holds a MSc in Management Research from ESADE, since 2004, and a combined undergraduate and MA in Business Administration from ESADE, 1998. From 2008 to 2010 she worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at INSEAD.

Laura's research interests are on leadership development and career dynamics, especially issues related to emotional intelligence, competencies at work, motivation to lead, identity change processes, executive coaching, and social science methods. Her research was funded by the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for post-doctoral studies within the 7th European Community Framework Programme, from the European Commission (2008-2010). Laura has studied Psychology (UNED, Madrid, Spain) and is member of the Research Center for Leadership at ESADE and the Research Group on Survey Research and Applied Statistic of the European Social Survey. She is a research fellow at INSEAD Global Leadership Center. Prior to her academic career, Laura worked for Unilever (Spain). She is a senior consultant with Endalia (Spain) where she has worked on executive development, coaching and leadership.

Dr. Steven Poelmans is co-founder and former academic director of the International Centre of Work and Family (ICWF) at IESE Business School and partner-director of WorkItOut, dedicated to human potential development. His research, teaching and consulting mainly focuses on employee wellbeing and flexible work arrangements, cultural intelligence and coaching, mostly with a cross-cultural perspective.

He published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals like the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Human Resource Management Review, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Academy of Management Journal, the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, and Personnel Psychology. His research was nominated twice (2005; 2009) for the prestigious Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for the best paper in the multi-disciplinary field of work and family. He is editor and co-author of three academic volumes: “Work and Family. An International Research Perspective” (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), “Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life: From Policy to Practice” (Cambridge University Press) and “Workplace Psychological Health: Current Research and Practice” (Edward Elgar). He is book review editor and guest-editor of the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management (Sage Publications).

For the last 10 years he lectured and did research at IESE Business School. He is visiting professor at the Mediterranean School of Business (Tunis), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (Chile), Reykjavik University (Iceland), the Vlerick Management School and University of Hasselt (Belgium). He trained executives in multinationals and coached over 300 MBA-students and executives. He was academic director and professor in executive coaching at IESE Business School. He has worked as coach / consultant / trainer for Roche Diagnostics; Novartis, Henkel and Nike.

He holds a Master in Organizational Psychology (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), a Master in Marketing Management (Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School / University of Gent, Belgium) and a Ph.D. in Management / Organizational Behavior (IESE Business School / University of Navarra, Spain). He is trained as a coach by Results Coaches.

Ricardo is associate in the Advanced Management Program at ESADE Business School - Executive Education and associate at the Executive MBA and Bolonia Masters at ESADE Faculties. He founded his own firm called Training Games in 1995, a training consultancy specialized in Simulation & Gaming methodologies applied to learning.

Zamora has specialized in the development of systemic competences and applies his programs in large/complex corporations. His research interests cover: Knowledge and Learning in Organisations, Cooperation, Collaboration and Teamwork, Distributed Leadership, Organisational Behaviour and Gaming and Simulation as training tools.

The graduate dissertation of his master degree (MBA) he received from ESADE, titled “The Teamwork, a Valuable Resource in Complex Environments”, was graded as outstanding Summa Cum Laude.

Large and multinational companies such as Dannon, Heineken, Unilever, HP, Arbora & Ausonia (Procter), Lafarge or Santander Banking Group are some of Zamora’s customers. He is member of the System Dynamics Society and NASAGA (North American Simulation and Gaming Association).

Alaíde Sipahi Dantas holds a Master of Research in Organisational Studies (Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo, Brasil), an Executive Master in Business Administration (ESPM – Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing, São Paulo, Brasil) and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Management Science at ESADE Business School. She is also formed as a coach by Results Coaching London. Her Master of Research in Organizational Studies was financially supported by CAPES (Institution related to the Brazilian Ministry of Education).

Alaíde Sipahi Dantas has developed her Master of Research in Organisational Studies on perception of time, time pressures and strategies to cope with challenges related to the contemporary feeling of time compression. She is currently a 3rd year Phd Student at ESADE Business School in which she researches on the topic of emotional and social competencies. Her Phd is finantially supported by an AGAUR grant.

Before entering in academia she worked in on organisations such as PriceWaterHouseCoopers and BBA Investment Bank.

Her research interests lies on emotional and social competencies and time experience. She is author, and co-author, together with her previous tutor Maria José Tonelli, on two papers that resulted from the Master Research in Organizational Studies. She is currently working with her tutor Joan Manuel Batista-Foguet, on a paper that describes the development of a Spanish questionnaire for the assessment of emotional and social competencies.

Margarida is a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the Leadership Development Research Centre of ESADE. Her research interests are focused on team emotional competencies development, and its effects on team performance and well-being outcomes. She holds a Master of Research in Management Sciences from ESADE, for which she defended the Master Thesis “Group Emotional Competence: A review and evaluation study”. Margarida also holds a Master of Science in Economics, Finance and Management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and a BA in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal). During her BA studies she did a Summer University programme in International Finance and E-Commerce at Wirtschaftsunivertät Wien (Austria) and an Erasmus programme at HEC Lausanne (Switzerland).

Since 2009, Margarida is Teaching Assistant at ESADE, for Quantitative Methods for Management Research, Structural Equation Models and Research Designs for Quantitative Methods (PhD courses), and Métodos de Investigación en Dirección de Empresas (BBA course). Upon joining ESADE, she won ESADE Talent Scholarship, in praise of her international work experience and fluency in four languages (Portuguese, English, French and Spanish). Her research training is supported by a doctoral grant from the autonomous government of Catalonia (AGAUR).

Alberto Ramírez is an Educational Psychologist and Web software developer. He obtained his BA degree in Universidad Católica at Lima, Perú. At the same time, he pursued studies on web technologies, earning a MCP and a Web Projects Management degrees in Cibertec Institute. He has also obtained a Trainer for Trainers degree at Atinchik Perú. Then he moved to Barcelona, where he obtained his Master degree on Educational Psychology, which represented his first steps on research related to Collaborative Learning in Virtual Environments.

Alberto is currently a PhD candidate for Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and his aim is to develop, test and deploy a technological tool that helps small virtual learning teams to share meanings and write collaboratively. Alberto has worked the last decade both in Psychology and Informatics, holding postions as web developer, database designer, system analyser, designer of educational programmes and as part of the research teams both at Universitat de Barcelona and ESADE.

Basak Canboy holds a double diploma of the University of Applied Sciences of Aachen, Germany, “Diplom Kauffrau des Europäischen Studienganges Wirtschaft (FH)” and the Mitthögscholan Östersund, Sweden, “Master of Science in Economics with a Major in Business Administration”. While working as an HR specialist for a German multinational company in Spain, Basak Canboy continued with her academic training part time and obtained the “Master en Dirección de Recursos Humanos” by EAE (Escuela de Administración Empresarial) and UPC (Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya). Finally, she decided to pursue an academic career and finished the “Master of Research in Management Science” Program of ESADE Business School where she currently is a first-year PhD candidate.


Basak Canboy is also an experienced in-company trainer. She has taught courses such as company culture, time management, leadership skills, conflict management or intercultural sensitivity.
 Due to her work experience in human resources departments, Basak Canboy is highly interested in research topics related to training and development with a special focus on management training programs and the development of emotional and social competencies in Business Schools and in companies.

She is currently conducting an outcome study on the development of emotional and social competencies in participants of the MBA program of ESADE.