Mission & Team

SHARPBRAINS Advi­sors is a think-tank and con­sult­ing firm pro­vid­ing inno­va­tion ser­vices to high growth, pur­pose-dri­ven orga­ni­za­tions on the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­science, health, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and lead­er­ship. Book in Eng­lish Here. SHARPBRAINS Advi­sors es un think-tank y con­sul­toría pro­por­cio­nan­do ser­vi­cios de inno­vación para la neu­ro­cien­cia apli­ca­da, salud, sosteni­bil­i­dad y lid­er­az­go. Libro en castel­lano Aquí.

SharpBrains.com, the fir­m’s edu­ca­tion­al blog and web­site, is a pop­u­lar brain blog with 90,000+ month­ly read­ers and 10,000+ eNewslet­ter subscribers.

Co-Founder and CEO

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, named a Young Glob­al Leader by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, runs Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent think-tank and con­sult­ing firm.

A rec­og­nized pub­lic speak­er, he has been quot­ed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN, Reuters, and Asso­ci­ated Press, among oth­ers. Alvaro is the Edi­tor-in-chief of sem­i­nal mar­ket reports on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Dig­i­tal Brain Health, and co-author of the books The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness and El Cere­bro Que Cura.

He enjoys serv­ing in the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Coun­cil on the Future of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, and in the Glob­al Teacher Prize Acad­e­my run by the Varkey Foun­da­tion. Alvaro holds an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity and a BA in Eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­dad de Deusto, in his native Spain. LinkedIn Pro­file: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez.

Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer

Lisa Neu­berg­er Fer­nan­dez is a sus­tain­abil­i­ty strate­gist, social inno­va­tor, and thought leader. Co- Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Sharp­Brains Advi­sors, Lisa has twen­ty-five years of expe­ri­ence lead­ing glob­al strat­e­gy and inno­va­tion teams to deliv­er val­ue for busi­ness and society.

As Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Accen­ture, Head of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at a clean­tech start­up, and Senior Advi­sor to the World Bank she advised pio­neers at For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, NGOs and mul­ti­lat­er­als on how to apply tech­nol­o­gy and inno­v­a­tive busi­ness mod­els for sus­tain­able and inclu­sive growth.

She was rec­og­nized as an Unusu­al Pio­neer by Yunus Social Busi­ness and the Schwab Foun­da­tion for Social Entre­pre­neur­ship, she holds an MBA from the Whar­ton School of Busi­ness and a Master’s from the Fletch­er School at Tufts.

Innovation Braintrust

Almi­ra Zejni­lag­ic Cem­mell, Non-exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Humo and Gojo & Com­pa­ny, London

Andrés Peláez, Part­ner, MCH Pri­vate Equi­ty, Madrid

Cyn­thia Hansen, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Inno­va­tion Foun­da­tion, Empow­ered by the Adec­co Group, Zurich

Fiona Macaulay, CEO + Founder, WILD Net­work, Montreal

Jacque­lyn Lane, Pres­i­dent, 100 Coach­es Agency, NYC

Joel Makow­er, Founder, Greenbiz.com, San Francisco

John Irons, SVP + Head of Research, Siegel Fam­i­ly Endow­ment, NYC

Jose Maria Gar­cia, Tech leader X‑Google, Madrid

Liz Maw, Direc­tor, Gold­man Envi­ron­men­tal Prize, San Francisco

Manuel López ‑Figueroa, PhD, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer at IMIDomics, San Francisco

Nar­ia San­ta Lucia, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Microsoft Phil­an­thropies, Seattle

Neil Alli­son, VP, Adec­co, Geneva

Patri­cia Cobian, CFO, Vir­gin Media O2, London

Scott Osman, CEO, 100 Coach­es Agency, NYC

 

Sci­en­tific Advi­sory Board

Baba Shiv is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mar­ket­ing at Stan­ford Busi­ness School. His research is in the area of con­sumer deci­sion mak­ing and deci­sion neu­ro­science, with spe­cific empha­sis on the role of emo­tion in deci­sion mak­ing, the neu­ro­log­i­cal bases of emo­tion, and non­con­scious men­tal process­es in deci­sion mak­ing. An Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research and on the edi­to­r­ial board of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Psy­chol­ogy and the Jour­nal of Mar­ket­ing Research, Pro­fes­sor Shiv has also served as a con­sul­tant for sev­eral mar­ket­ing, law and invest­ment firms.

Dr. Carl Eis­dor­fer is the Direc­tor of the Cen­ter on Aging at the Uni­ver­sity of Mia­mi School of Med­i­cine; and Co-Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Research and Edu­ca­tion on Aging and Tech­nol­ogy Enhance­ment. He has authored over 315 sci­en­tific arti­cles pri­mar­ily in aging. He has served as Pres­i­dent of the Geron­to­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Amer­ica, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Aging Research. Dr. Eis­dor­fer received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from New York Uni­ver­sity and his M.D. and Psy­chi­atric train­ing from Duke University.

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg is an author, sci­en­tist, edu­ca­tor and clin­i­cian, inter­na­tion­ally renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, writ­ings and teach­ing in neu­ropsy­chol­ogy and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science. He is a Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine, and Diplo­mate of The Amer­i­can Board of Pro­fes­sional Psy­chol­ogy in Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy. A stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria, Dr. Gold­berg has con­tin­ued to advance Luria’s sci­en­tific and clin­i­cal tra­di­tion, and writ­ten pop­u­lar sci­ence books such as The Exec­u­tive Brain and The Wis­dom Para­dox.

Dr. Joaquin Fuster is Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences at the Neu­ropsy­chi­atric Insti­tute and Brain Research Insti­tute of Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Los Ange­les’ School of Med­i­cine. Fuster’s long research career has had wide-rang­ing impli­ca­tions for our under­stand­ing of the brain mech­a­nisms of cognition.

Dr. Ken­neth Kosik is the Co-Direc­tor, Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia San­ta Bar­bara. From 1980 until 2005 he held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School where he became Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­ogy and Neu­ro­science in 1996. He has received a Whitak­er Health Sci­ences Award from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy, a Met­ro­pol­i­tan Life Foun­da­tion Med­ical Award, the Derek Den­ny-Brown Neu­ro­log­i­cal Schol­ar Award from the Amer­i­can Neu­ro­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion, and a NASA Group Achieve­ment Award to the Neu­ro­lab Sci­ence Team.