Contact Information
Associate Professor, Strategy & Sustainability
Lara is an Associate Professor at Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada, and is a research fellow at the Itaqui Institute for Biodiversity Research in Brazil. Her expertise lies in strategy and sustainability, with a focus on how collaborations can influence strategic approaches to systems change.
Lara co-founded the Centre for Innovation, Systems, and Sustainability (CISS) and has a history of researching systems thinking and change. She has published numerous articles in leading journals within this field and is the author of the book "Systems Thinking and Systems Theory for Management." Lara is committed to integrating systems thinking and sustainability into management education to cultivate responsible leaders. Additionally, she has extensively researched Brazil's agri-food sector, and her research findings have been featured in several highly cited journals.
She has worked to enhance management research in Latin America, serving as the executive editor of the Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development and co-founding the Latin American Society for Systems and Sustainability.
For over seven years, Lara has worked with indigenous communities in the Amazon, investigating the biodiversity supply chain. Her ongoing project with Brazilian nut producers, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Brazilian government, exemplifies her dedication to fostering meaningful collaborations rooted in mutual respect and honor for Indigenous traditions, wisdom, and cosmology.
Lara has also led sustainability projects within various organizations and has worked as consultant in organizations such as PwC, UNICA (the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry and Bioenergy Association), and UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).
With a well-established academic career, a consultancy background, and a trajectory as an entrepreneur, she has served on several private board councils, fostering important connections between research and practice in strategic sectors such as information technology and agri-food. She has coordinated numerous cross-sector projects aimed innovative strategies for systems change.