Roberto M. Fernandez is currently the William F. Pounds Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has over 35 years teaching experience at numerous universities, including six years as a Full Professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and 24 years at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He is a recognized expert in the areas of organizational behavior, social networks, and human resources, and is the author of over 60 articles and research papers published in these areas.
Roberto is an outstanding communicator, and has received numerous Sloan- and MIT-wide teaching awards (in 2009 the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching; in 2011, the Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising; in 2023 the Committed to Caring (C2C) Award for “Outstanding Advisors and Mentors; in 2023-2024 the MIT Sloan Outstanding Teacher Award).
Roberto’s executive teaching duties include the management of innovation, organizational change, and human resources, negotiations, networks, and power and politics in organizations. In addition, he is the lead professor in charge of the required class on Organizational Processes for MIT Sloan’s Executive MBA (EMBA) degree program. Roberto has also served as the faculty leader for many custom executive education programs with a focus on organizational transformation and change management. He has worked with private and public sector organizations across numerous industries, including Automotives, Banking and Finance, BioPharma and Health Care, Entertainment, Energy, Mining and Oil and Gas. He has traveled extensively, lecturing and consulting for top executive audiences and clients in Abu Dhabi, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Malaysia, Morocco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Most recently, Roberto has been faculty co-leader of the AI For National Security Program supporting the US government in adoption of Artificial Intelligence.
Roberto earned a BA in Sociology (magna cum laude) from Harvard University, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago specializing Organizational Sociology. He has received numerous awards for his scholarship and teaching. In 2012, Roberto was honored by being elected as a Fellow of The American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, an honorary society founded in 1889.
