Keynote Speakers

We are honoured to present the esteemed professors who accepted to be the keynote speakers:


Andrea S. Gubik
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Miskolc, (Hungary).​

Andrea S. Gubik is an Associate Professor at the University of Miskolc (Hungary). She holds a PhD in Management and Business Administration. She is a member of several scientific associations, among others, the Scientific Committee on Statistics and Futures Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a member of the editorial board of the International Entrepreneurship Review and the Messenger of ASUE. She has been awarded the Research Fellowship of the Laky Teréz Foundation, the Young Scientist Award of the Miskolc Regional Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Budapest Business School Science Prize and the Excellent Researcher Award by the University of Miskolc. She deals with entrepreneurship, especially interested in the role of formal and informal institutional factors in the start-up decision. She is the Hungarian coordinator of the GUESSS (Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students‘ Survey) project.

TOPIC: Entrepreneurial career: Factors influencing the decision of students


Jan-Philipp​ Ahrens
Professor at the University of Passau / University of Mannheim

Jan-Philipp Ahrens is professor at the University of Passau, Chair of International Management and Social Entrepreneurship, and Head of the Interdisciplinary Research Group Family Firms at the University of Mannheim. Jan-Philipp’s research group operates a super computer infrastructure dedicated to research firm and human behaviour (CEOs) with respect to justice and sustainability (UN SDGs) using big data and artificial intelligence-based approaches. His research was awarded or nominated for more than twenty research awards and is published in high impact journals, such as the Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and the Journal of Management Studies. He serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Family Business Strategy.

TOPIC: Family Firms, Mittelstand, Hidden Champions – Insights from Germany


Prof. Robert Faff
​Professor of Finance at University Of Queensland

Robert Faff is Professor of Finance and formerly Director of Research at the UQ Business School. He has an international reputation in empirical finance research: securing 14 Australian Research Council grants (funding exceeding $4 million); >310 refereed journal publications; career citations >12,800 (Google Scholar); and a h-index of 57 (Google Scholar). His particular passion is nurturing and developing the career trajectories of early career researchers. Robert has supervised approximately 40 PhD students to successful completion and examined 50 PhD dissertations. Building on a 35-year academic career, his latest focus is “Pitching Research”, now gaining great traction domestically and worldwide as exemplified by: (a) >13,600 SSRN downloads; (b) >300 pitching talks/events; (c) at 37 Australian universities; and (d) spanning 52 different countries. In addition, Robert is Editor-in-Chief of Pacific-Basin Finance Journal; formerly: Editor of Accounting and Finance (2002-2011) and Associate Editor of several journals including Abacus and Australian Journal of Management.

TOPIC: Pitching research in entrepreneurship education

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