Esade Chair in Social Impact
Transforming knowledge into meaningful impact
The Esade Chair in Social Impact is a pioneering initiative created to advance social impact across research, business, investment, and talent development. Led by Professor Lisa Hehenberger, the current Dean of Esade Business School, the Chair bridges academic rigor and real-world action to generate knowledge that matters.
Through academic and applied research, collaboration between academia and industry, and leadership development, it equips practitioners, students, and scholars to embed impact-driven strategies into business, investment, and policy. With this vision, the Chair aspires to become an international benchmark and a catalyst for impactful approaches to today's most pressing social and environmental challenges.
The Chair was launched in October 2025 with the support of four founding partners: the Fundación Bancaria BBK, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Bertelsmann Stiftung, and Impact Bridge Asset Management.
The Chair's three pillars
The Chair works through three connected pillars.
Research
The Chair develops applied and academic research on the generation, financing, measurement, and scaling of social impact. Its areas of focus include impact measurement and management, impact investing, gender lens investing, social entrepreneurship, and systemic impact.
Education
The Chair develops executive education for current and future leaders, combining theory, research findings, and hands-on application. These programs are designed to help participants build more effective and responsible strategies for creating measurable impact. Insights from the Chair's research also feed into Esade's undergraduate and graduate programs.
Annual event and dialogue
Each year, the Chair hosts a flagship international event during Barcelona4Impact, bringing together leaders across sectors to exchange knowledge, explore emerging trends, and foster collaboration. Alongside its other activities, the event strengthens ECSI’s role as a bridge between academic knowledge and practical challenges faced by organizations seeking to create lasting social impact.
Philanthropy in Transition: Moving from Discourse to Action on Systems Change
This forthcoming research examines how foundations are translating systems-change ambitions into practice, with a particular focus on monitoring, evaluation and learning. It offers evidence, case studies, a systemic philanthropy spectrum, and reflection tools to help foundations understand where they are and identify practical entry points for moving forward.
Partners
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