Prof.dr. Karen Watkins worked as Local Academic Director for the Executive Masters in Financial Management Program (XFM Mexico Program- Rotterdam School of Management) and for the Global Executive Masters in Financial Management Mexico Program (GEMFM program at IESDE School of Management). She is currently the Director of the GEMFM Global Network. Dr. Watkins is affiliated to the Business and Communication Faculty at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Spain, and to ITSM. She teaches bachelor and postgraduate economics and finance. Karen Watkins is a member of the EURO Working Group for Commodities and Financial Modelling, the International Family Enterprise Research Academy, and the International Corporate Governance Society. She has been invited several times to teach Corporate Governance, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Empirical Finance at the XFM and GEMFM programs in Curacao and Mexico, the Masters in Financial Management program at RSM, and BSc programs at UCC Business School. Dr. Watkins obtained the PhD degree in Finance at Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus School of Economics, during 2007. Afterwards, she held a Postdoctoral position at Santander Chair in Family Business, University of Granada, Spain. Her research interests are Corporate Governance, Family Firms, and Entrepreneurship. She has published around thirty articles in journals such as the International Journal of Corporate Governance, The European Journal of Family Business, Frontiers in Finance and Economics, Social Indicators Research, Ensayos Revista de Economia, Contaduria y Administracion, and El Trimestre Economico. Dr. Watkins is the author of two books, one published by ERIM and entitled Macroeconomic Crisis and Firm Performance. She has received several awards, including Best Paper Awards from Ensayos Revista de Economia and The European Journal of Family Business. In 2015 she also received the Adalberto Viesca Sada award for her research on Latin American family firms.