Rudy Aernoudt is a professor of Corporate Finance and European Policy with extensive international experience at MIT, the OECD, and several European institutions. He has held Chief of Staff positions at multiple governance levels — Europe, Belgium, Flanders, and Wallonia — and served as Secretary-General for Economy, Science, and Innovation, director-general of the MIT spinoff OLPC (One Laptop per Child), and curator at TEDx Brussels.

Rudy is co-founder of EBAN (European Business Angels Network), founder of FREE (Foundation for Research on Education and Entrepreneurship), and European Chair of the WBAF (World Business Angel Forum). He has authored over 45 books and 500 papers on corporate finance, ethics, geopolitics, and economics, with handbooks like Financial Management in Practice widely used in academia and business.

Recognized as a “Hero for European Entrepreneurship” by the Wall Street Journal, Rudy is considered a pioneer of the business angel movement in Europe and has received multiple awards for his contributions to entrepreneurship and innovation.