Valeria Giacomin

Assistant Professor, Bocconi University

Global Histroy, Entrepreneurial History, Industrial clusters, International Business, Agribusiness, Philanthropy
Business Historians at Business Schools

Valeria Giacomin is currently Assistant Professor at Bocconi University. Valeria obtained her PhD from CBS in November 2016 with a paper-based thesis on the evolution of the palm oil cluster in Malaysia and Indonesia between 1890 and 1970. She served as a postdoc at Harvard Business School (Newcomen Fellow) and University of Southern California (Fellow in Historical Entrepreneurship at Greif Center). Her work has been published in Business History, Enterprise & Society, MOH, Journal of Global History and Journal of Business Ethics. Her current research focuses on global and business history, entrepreneurship and ethics, clustering and emerging markets.

Service to the BHC

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee 2024 - 2027 [Chair 2026 - 2027]

Board of Trustees 2024 - 2027

Wilkins Prize Committee 2022 - 2025 [Chair 2023 - 2024]

Emerging Scholars Committee 2020 - 2023 [Chair 2022 - 2023]

Prizes and Grants from the BHC

Mira Wilkins Prize, 2019

Recent Conference Participation

2026 BHC Meeting: Presenter, "Manufacturers Plantation Investment and Early Global Rubber Chains: the Case of Pirelli in Java"
2025 BHC meeting: Presenter, "An Un-American Story: Mattel’s entrepreneurial intimidation in the global toy industry (1950s-1960s)"
2025 BHC meeting: Presenter, Roundtable Presentation
2024 BHC Meeting: Presenter, "Financial Insights about East Sumatran Plantations in Early 1900s Rubber Bubble"
2023 BHC Meeting: Presenter, "The rise of the mutual fund global city network in the post war period (1945-1989)" Chair, Clusters, Agglomerations and Districts
2023 BHC Meeting: Presenter, "Environmentalism and Sustainability in the Southeast Asian Plantation Industry (1930s-2000s)" Chair, Clusters, Agglomerations and Districts
2022 BHC Meeting : Presenter, "Spiritual Philanthropy in Emerging Markets" Chair, MariTIME: Disruptions and Temporality in Maritime Business and Labour
2022 BHC Meeting : Presenter, "The rise of Milan as a global fashion hub: a demand-driven theory of agglomeration (1960-1980)" Chair, MariTIME: Disruptions and Temporality in Maritime Business and Labour
2022 BHC Meeting : Presenter, "On Varying Institutions among U.S. States: Historical Origins and Contemporary Organizational Implications" Chair, MariTIME: Disruptions and Temporality in Maritime Business and Labour
2020 BHC Meeting: Presenter, "Contested Femininity and Entrepreneurial Imagination: Ruth Handler"