Leandro (Leo) Pongeluppe is an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of Management, University of Pennsylvania. Leo’s primary research interests are related to stakeholder management and socioeconomic development. Particularly, Leo is interested in understanding how organizations’ design and governance affect the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as poverty alleviation, environmental conservation, and healthcare. Leo uses mixed methods in his research, combining econometric causal inference methods with ethnographic techniques to analyze multi-faceted problems related to socioeconomic development. Currently, Leo is performing research in settings such as the Brazilian favelas, the Amazon rainforest, and African HIV/AIDS treatment clinics.
Professionally, Leo co-founded and worked as a PMO at Insper Metricis, a research group dedicated to evaluating projects’ socio-environmental impact. At Insper Metricis, Leo participated in the design of Brazil’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB), in partnership with the São Paulo State Government, Sundfeld Attorneys, Social Finance-UK, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Leo also worked for about three years as an associate researcher at Accenture Institute for High Performance. During this time, Leo participated in projects related to inclusive innovation and public innovation in the context of developing countries, namely Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa.
