AFS 2025

Morten Bennedsen is The André and Rosalie Hoffmann Chaired Professor of Family Enterprise at INSEAD and the Academic Director of the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise. He obtained his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1998, a Master’s degree with distinction from London School of Economics, and a Bachelor Degree from the University of Copenhagen. His area of teaching includes family business governance, corporate governance, applied microeconomics, and firm theory.

Morten Bennedsen’s main research area is the governance of family firms and other closely held corporations in a global context. He has done research on family firms, closely held corporations, capital structures, venture capital, investor protection, ownership structures, and privatisation. His work has been published in top finance and economics journals, such as Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Political Economics, Quarterly Journals of Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Public Economics. Morten Bennedsen has won a number of research and teaching prizes, such as the winner of the Danish part of the EURYI competition (2004), the FUHU prize for Best Teaching and Course Development at the Copenhagen Business School (2006), and the biggest Danish individual research prize - EliteForsk 2008 - from the Danish Ministry of Science.

He has served as an advisor to the Danish Ministry of Business in the area of family firms and succession politics in particular, and, more generally, on corporate financial policy. He has done advisory and consultancy work for a.o., the Danish association of private equity funds, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the World Bank, and Novo Nordisk Foundation. He frequently gives talks to family firms, corporate finance institutions, investment banks, and private equity funds on governance of family firms and the economic consequences of succession.

Morten Bennedsen’s research has been cited in many international newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune and business newspapers in Germany, Nederlands, Portugal, Norway and Denmark.