May-Anne
Very

May-Anne Very is an Assistant Professor in the Strategic Management Department at IESE Business School.

Her research lies at the intersection of Strategy, Sustainability, and AI/Data Science. Her work explores how companies can leverage corporate strategy, in particular M&A, to navigate and transform in the face of the world’s most pressing challenges. Her primary stream of research has focused on sustainability as one of these critical issues. For instance, her papers have delved into the impact of sustainability-driven acquisitions (e.g. ‘Customer Base Implications of Sustainable Acquisitions in the Consumer Packaged Food & Beverage Industry’), and recent projects explore the role of climate change in shaping M&A decisions. Professor Very has published research in a leading academic journal, the Global Strategy Journal, and presented papers at top international conferences, including the Academy of Management and the Strategic Management Society annual meetings.

Professor Very is deeply engaged in AI and data science. Her work leverages these tools as a promising way to answer firms’ key strategy questions. She is particularly interested in the opportunities offered by AI and data science to unlock new insights from rising data sources (e.g. satellite-based CO2 emissions measurements, text analysis using NLP, big data analysis of the Nielsen data). She has also been working on the broader impact of AI on academic research and business education, including through her role as a member of IESE’s  ‘AI for research’ taskforce.

At IESE, Professor Very has been teaching Corporate Strategy and Competitive Strategy in the EMBA, MBA, and Master in Management programs. She holds a Ph.D. in Strategy from INSEAD, a M.Sc. in Management from HEC Paris, and has completed a one-year program specializing in Economics (M1) at École Polytechnique. Prior to joining academia, she has gained international experience in M&A and consulting across Europe and Asia.