Leonardo Luca Etro

Leonardo Etro is Associate Professor of Practice in Corporate Finance and M&A at SDA Bocconi. He is a contract Professor of Corporate Finance & Business Valuation at Università Bocconi.

At SDA Bocconi he is Management Board Member, Director of International Executive Programs for CFI Division and Director of Finance Knowledge Area. In the past years, He directed the Accounting, Control, Corporate and Real Estate Finance Knowledge Group and he was Director of International Development. He served also as a Member of the Management Board in 2015-16 and 2018-20. He is currently the Director of the Executive Master in Financial Management. He is the Scientific Director of the Best Performance Award, the annual SDA Bocconi prize (in partnership with Mediolanum, PwC, Fondazione Veronesi and Havas) dedicated to Italian companies which have distinguished themselves for excellence in sustainable development. He has conducted numerous researches, education and consulting projects with the leading multinationals operating in the fashion, food, pharma, manufacturing, E-commerce and banking industries.

His research activities focus on issues of a financial nature such as M&A and restructuring, private equity & venture capital, capital structure and company valuation. Currently, his research focuses on three main areas: the first is the study of optimal capital structure for listed Italian and European companies; the second is the relationship between corporate governance and company value; the third is aimed at determining how to create value in M&A Cross Border transactions.

He is the author of numerous books and articles on his topics of interest. His works have been published in leading national and international journals including Applied Financial Economics, the Journal of Management

Development, the International Journal of Finance and Banking, Thunderbird International Business Review and Economia & Management. He has won many awards for his research such as the prize for Best Innovation in Research Projects, Divisione Claudio Dematté Research in 2014. In 2015-2016 and 2019-2020, he won the Bocconi Teaching Award. He serves as Independent Board Member of various Italian Listed companies.

Leonardo earned a degree with Honors in Business Administration from Università Bocconi and an ITP (International Teachers Programme) organized by Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (Chicago). He is a Faculty Member of SDA Bocconi Asia Center in Mumbai, India. He has two great passions: skiing and travelling to discover new cultures and emotions, but since he became a Dad, he only thinks about his son Tommaso, born in 2020!