2026 Best 40-Under-40 Business Professors: Tammaro Terracciano, IESE Business School 

Tammaro Terracciano
IESE Business School 

“Tammaro stands out as a rare scholar who seamlessly bridges frontier research, global policy debates, and transformative classroom teaching. His work exemplifies the type of faculty impact that Poets&Quants celebrates: an academic who shapes how future business leaders understand finance while simultaneously contributing to how policymakers and markets interpret financial change.

“Since the earliest stages of his academic career, Tammaro demonstrated remarkable intellectual foresight. Long before topics such as stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, and digital dollarization entered mainstream financial debates, he chose to devote his doctoral research to understanding how technological innovation would transform money, banking, and financial intermediation. At the time these topics were considered niche. Today they sit at the center of global monetary and financial policy discussions. His work anticipated this shift and helped shape the conversation.” – Angela Gallo 

Tammaro Terracciano, 34, is an Assistant Professor of Finance at IESE Business School. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the Swiss Finance Institute and the University of Geneva. During his studies, he was a visiting research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University. 

His research focuses on financial intermediation, international finance, and fintech. He actively contributes to the policy discussion in these areas, and his work has been featured in leading financial media outlets, including the Financial Times and The Economist. 

Terracciano has also previously spent time at institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. 

BACKGROUND 

At current institution since what year? 2023

Education: PhD Finance, Swiss Finance Institute and University of Geneva. 

List of MBA/graduate business courses you currently teach: I’m currently teaching Corporate Finance, Operational Finance and Finance One. 

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR 

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when … It was during the 2011 Italian sovereign debt crisis. I realized I didn’t fully understand what was happening around me, and that economics was the discipline I needed to make sense of it. That decided my academic path. The “business school” part came later: by the end of my PhD, I’d noticed I learned the most when working through real problems with policy makers and practitioners — which is exactly what business schools are built for. 

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? Two projects are absorbing me at the moment. The first, on safe assets and stablecoins, examines whether stablecoin-linked products can deliver safety services to investors. We show how a volatile and unregulated ecosystem has evolved to cater to investors’ demand for safety and how the U.S. Treasury still plays a central role in safety provision.  

The second, on digitalization and credit allocation, asks how lenders respond when new kinds of data become digitized. We find that credit gets redirected toward firms that are more exposed to the type of information being digitized, and away from other firms. In other words, the gains from digitalization are uneven, with potential consequences for firm growth and investment. 

If I weren’t a business school professor… I’d be a comedy writer! Or, more realistically, I’d work in an investment fund. 

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? The passion, probably.  

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: How exciting it is! 

Professor I most admire and why: Many were crucial to my path. However, the most impactful encounter was probably with Barry Eichengreen back in 2016: his international econ course was truly fascinating and inspiring to me.  

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? They bring careers, industries, and hard-won judgment into the room, and I learn as much from their experiences as they do from the cases we discuss in class. That keeps me sharp, and it keeps the work feeling fresh. 

What is most challenging? Work-life balance. 

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… Too generous!  

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM 

What are your hobbies?  Watching stand-up comedy, probably more than is reasonable. Otherwise, sport: martial arts, surfing, and sailing –although I don’t get to do them as much as I’d like. 

How will you spend your summer? I’m still finalizing my plans, but I expect to spend part of the summer traveling for work and part going back home in Bologna to visit my family.  

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Any chill place by the sea with great food. 

Favorite book(s): I’m not sure I can pick one favorite, but Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time really stayed with me. I’ve always been fascinated by physics (although I’m no expert) and I really enjoyed how the book takes something as ordinary as time and makes it feel mysterious and fascinating through the lens of modern physics. It changed the way I think about something we all take for granted. 

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? Again, I don’t think I have a favorite, but I really enjoyed The Great Beauty and Breaking Bad. 

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? It varies a lot with my mood and what I’m doing — anything from rock and country to pop, indie, rap, and classical. 

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS 

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… breadth. Technical skills (like financial modeling, data analysis, coding) are increasingly being handled by AI, while the world is getting harder to read. The next generation of world executives will need less mechanical fluency and more judgment: a working understanding of geopolitics, history, technology, and culture. Running a business today requires skills that aren’t, strictly speaking, business skills at all, and curricula should catch up. 

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… thinking long-term! Chasing fads doesn’t pay off.  

I’m grateful for… a lot of things! 

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2026 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 GRADUATE BUSINESS PROFESSORS 

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