Eduardo Ballarin, Former President of the Harvard Club of Spain, Dies at Age 62
April 28, 2009
Eduardo Ballarín, Former President of the Harvard Club of Spain, Dies at Age 62
Madrid, April 28th 2009 – Professor Eduardo Ballarín of IESE Business School, and former President of the Harvard Club of Spain, died suddenly at his home in Madrid last night. He was 62, and is survived by his wife Reyes and their three children.
Ballarín, who earned a Doctorate of Business Administration from HBS in 1976, held the Nissan Chair of Corporate Strategy and International Business at IESE, one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. He also founded the International Center for Competitiveness (ICC), a research unit closely linked to the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC), led by Harvard Prof. Michael Porter.
Eduardo had been President of the Harvard Club of Spain for most of the present decade, and was very involved in promoting strong links with Harvard throughout his life, he visited the campus several times a year.
Throughout his academic career, Ballarín published widely on strategy and organization with particular emphasis on the financial services and telecommunications industries. He consulted for companies such as Alcatel, Bankinter, British Telecom and KPMG. He was actively involved in several mergers of major financial institutions in Spain, including BBVA (Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya) and la Caixa.
He was a kind man and an inspired teacher who used wit, irony and passion to bring his academic subjects to life.
He will be sorely missed by his many friends and colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Harvard Club of Spain would also like to express its thanks for the numerous letters of support and condolence received.