About

Belén Villalonga is the William R. Berkley Professor in Management and Finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. She joined Stern in 2012 and previously was a faculty member at Harvard Business School from 2001 to 2012. Her work focuses on family business, corporate strategy, and corporate governance. She has extensively studied how family ownership and control influence firms’ governance, strategy, and performance, as well as corporate diversification. Professor Villalonga has developed and taught courses and programs for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as for executives and business families. Her research has been published in leading academic journals, cited approximately 20,000 times, and featured in major international media outlets. She holds a Ph.D. in Management and an M.A. in Economics from UCLA, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, and a second Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid. Fluent in Spanish, English, and French, and conversant in Portuguese and Italian, she also serves or has served as an independent director on the boards of several global companies across various industries.

Selected publications

• Corporate ownership and ESG performance

  Journal of Corporate Finance · 2025-01-04 · 34 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Corporate Governance Research of Family Enterprises 3.0

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  The systematic integration of family business governance research across academic disciplines (entrepreneurship, strategy, finance, and family business) has occurred haphazardly. The first wave of research was driven by finance researchers and focused on the efficiency of corporate governance in family versus non-family firms (Anderson & Reeb, 2003; 2004). The second wave of research was led by research in strategy, finance, and family business and focused on how common best practices in corporate governance could help improve the efficiency of family businesses (Villalonga & Amit, 2009; Miller et al., 2011). While many important insights were gained, the growing complexity of the body of knowledge has led to many sub-discussions focusing on some aspects of family business governance within each discipline. Fewer efforts have been focused on overcoming the mixed and disjointed body of knowledge across disciplines. It has only been more recently, in what we coin the third wave of research, that academics have started to bridge the traditional family business literature with more modern family business research in other disciplines, recognizing that business-owning families different needs and challenges, such as their lived traditions and history, the larger family’s influence over the family owners, and the particular family dynamics, require tailored governance to enable business efficiency (Combs et al., 2020; Jaskiewicz et al., 2017). This symposium will focus on emerging theories, approaches, and insights that offer promise for strengthening and integrating research across disciplines to identify the unique drivers, characteristics, and outcomes of tailored family business governance. Despite the growing recognition that new forums are needed to unify parallel discussions on this topic, opportunities for such dialogue have been scarce. We have rallied academic experts who have led important discussions on different aspects of family business governance over the last few years to fill this gap. Each of these experts will share their perspective before engaging with the other experts and the audience about making contributions that transcend the siloed discussions on family business governance. Our symposium aims to synthesize current discussions across disciplines and develop a research agenda of vital interdisciplinary research opportunities

  PublisherDOI

• Corporate Ownership and ESG Performance

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Family ownership

  Oxford Review of Economic Policy · 2020 · 99 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Economics

  Abstract This article reviews the existing literature about the most prevalent form of corporate ownership around the world: ownership by individuals—particularly founders—and families. We summarize the existing evidence about the prevalence and persistence of family ownership around the world, along with its impact on performance—both financial and non-financial—relative to other types of corporate ownership. We discuss how and why these empirical facts and findings come about—why owners in general, and family owners in particular, are critical drivers of firm behaviour and performance, and how they are able to exercise their influence over corporations in which other shareholders, such as institutional investors, and other stakeholders can also play an important role.

  PublisherDOI

• Family firms and the stock market performance of acquisitions and divestitures

  Strategic Management Journal · 2019-01-12 · 78 citations

  articleSenior author

  Research Summary This paper explores the stock market performance of acquisitions and divestitures where both, one, or neither of the companies in the transaction are family firms. We find that acquirer shareholder returns are highest when family firms buy businesses from non‐family firm divesters, especially when family chief executive officer (CEO) acquirers buy businesses from non‐family CEO divesters. Additionally, divester shareholder returns are highest when family firms sell businesses to non‐family firm acquirers, especially when family CEO divesters sell businesses to non‐family CEO acquirers. These findings reveal that it is important to consider the characteristics of both the acquiring and divesting firms when analyzing acquisition and divestiture performance, and that the expected gains to family firm acquisitions and divestitures are driven by transactions in which the counterparties are non‐family firms. Managerial Summary This paper explores how investors react to acquisitions and divestitures where both, one, or neither of the companies in the deal are family firms. The stock market performance of acquiring firms is highest when family firms buy businesses from non‐family firms, relative to the other three possible combinations of family and non‐family firm acquirers and divesters. Likewise, the stock market performance of divesting firms is highest when family firms sell businesses to non‐family firms, again relative to the other three possible combinations of family and non‐family acquirers and divesters. These findings suggest that investors take into consideration the identities of both the acquiring and divesting firms when evaluating acquisitions and divestitures, and that this has significant implications for the expected performance gains of these transactions.

  PublisherDOI

• on ownership structure and corporate performance: Looking back and looking forward

  Journal of Corporate Finance · 2019-04-12 · 14 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• What Are Boards For? Evidence from Closely Held Firms in Colombia

  Financial Management · 2018-04-20 · 40 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Using a large survey database on the corporate governance practices of privately held Colombian firms, we investigate why firms have boards, and how that choice and the balance of power among the board, controlling shareholders, and minority shareholders affect the trade‐offs between control, liquidity, and growth and, ultimately, firm performance. We find that the probability of having a board increases with the number of shareholders and in family firms. When the preferences of controlling and minority shareholders diverge, as with respect to capital structure and dividend policy, boards support controlling shareholders’ decisions, thereby exacerbating the agency conflict between the two groups of shareholders.

  PublisherDOI

• Family Firms and the Stock Market Performance of Acquisitions and Divestitures

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2018-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The impact of ownership on building sustainable and responsible businesses

  Journal of the British Academy · 2018-01-01 · 32 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article reviews what we know and do not know about the impact of ownership on building sustainable and responsible businesses. It begins by analysing why firm owners are an important driver of responsible business behaviour, and reviews whether such behaviour comes at a financial cost to owners or not. It then discusses how owners drive responsible business behaviour as compared to other stakeholders, reviewing the empirical evidence about the impact of different owner types on various forms of responsible business.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What Are Boards For? Evidence from Closely Held Firms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2017-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Awards & honors

• 25th Anniversary Award for the most influential paper publis…
• Second Prize, 2010-2012 Pearson Best Paper Prize, Financial…
• Junior Faculty Recipient, Wyss Award for Excellence in Mento…
• Standard Life Investments Finance Prize for the best paper i…
• Andre Hoffman Visiting Professor of Family Enterprise, INSEA…