Paloma Fernández Pérez is an expert in the history of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial networks in emerging economies of past and present times. She obtained a Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Berkeley in the United States of America (1994), and graduated in History at the University of Barcelona in Spain (1987).
She has been and is leading researcher of competitive public and private research projects, and currently participates as coordinator in Barcelona of a European Union Horizon 2020 RISE project involving 16 centers of three continents.
She is author and editor of many books and articles published by international academic publishers, the last ones are an special issue as guest editor with P.Y. Donzé for the journal Business History about the Business of Health (2019) now under publication as a book in Routledge (2022), and the book The emergence of modern hospital management and organization in the world, 1880s-1930s (Emerald Publishers, 2021). She has coedited with A. Lluch Familias empresarias y grandes empresas familiares en América Latina y España (Bilbao, FBBVA 2015, awarded best book by Argentinian Institute of Family Firms in 2016) and Evolution of Family Businesses (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar 2016, awarded best book by Spanish Association of Economic History). Coedited with C. Lubinski and J. Fear Family Multinationals (NY, Routledge, 2013), and with A. Colli The Endurance of Family Businesses (NY, Cambridge University Press, 2013). She is currently writing one book about the history of one of the oldest unions of medical doctors in Europe and how they shaped enduring practices that have lasted a century, and is coeditor of a second forthcoming book in Emerald publishers, about collective entrepreneurship in the services industries in different countries of the world.
Past member of the EBHA Council, and the AEHE Council, now Trustee of the Business History Conference. Past coeditor of the journal Business History, currently co-editor of the Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business, and member of editorial board of the U.S. journal Enterprise&Society. Founder and coordinator of the Network of Interdisciplinary Research in Family Firms. Awarded twice the ICREA Academia distinction to excellence in research (2008-2013 and 2013-2018) by the Catalan government, and awarded the best book prize in economic history by the Spanish Association of Economic History in 2018 for a collective book on family businesses in Latin America and Spain.
