Ilídio Tomás Lopes was born on January 18, 1966, in the municipality of Abrantes (Portugal). He is currently a professor at "Iscte University Institute of Lisbon" and associate member of Bru_iscte Business Research Unit" of the same institution. He also teaches in the Executive Master in Business Management (Iscte_Executive Education) and in the Graduation of Economy and Regulation of Financial Institutions (Ipps_iscte). He is currently: Director of "Audax_iscte"; President of the Supervisory Board of  "Iscte Conhecimento e Inovação", and Member of the Supervision Committee of OROC - Ordem dos REvisores Oficiais de Contas. He was Non-Executive Director, Member of Auditing Committee and Member of the Corporate Governance Committe, of Banco BIC Português, S.A. (EuroBic); Member of the Supervisory Board of Novartis Farma - Produtos Farmacêuticos, SA.;PhD in Business Management, Specialization in Accounting (University of Coimbra, 2009), Master in Statistics and Information Management (ISEGI, New University of Lisbon, 2001) and Graduation in Business Organization and Management (ISEG, University of Lisbon, 1990). Over is career as professor (since 1994), he was a professor at the School of Management and Technology of the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém (1997 to 2013), acting between 2011 and 2013 dean of the institution. He was also a collaborative professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (2006 to 2011). Responsible for several curricular units such as: Auditing; Financial Auditing; Financial Performance Evaluation; Financial Accounting II; Bank Accounting.  He also held management positions in several multinational companies. Author of several scientific publications, member of several national and international scientific committees and reviewer of articles for scientific journals in the scientific fields of Management and Accounting. Author of the books "Management Control: An Integrated View of Business Performance" (Edições Almedina, 2019, 2020),  "Accounting and Finance for Non financial managers" (Edições Almedina, 2020), "Financial Auditing: From Internal Control to Independent External Control" (Edições Almedina, 2019, 2022), "Financial Accounting: Preparation of Financial Statements, Disclosure and Analysis" (Escolar Editora, 2013, 2017, 2021), "The Management of Intellectual Capital and Intangibles in the Age of Knowledge" (Escolar Editora, 2013) and" Financial Accounting: Resolved and Proposed Exercises" (Edições Almedina, 2017, 2019). Coauthor of the book "Societies: Accounting and Tax Aspects" (Escolar Editora, 2016), among others. He has published in several international journals, including: Measuring Business Excellence; International Journal of Business Excellence; International Journal of Disclosure and Governance; International Journal of Business Performance Management; Business: Theory and Practice, International Journal of Business Innovation and Research. His main areas of interest are: 1. Financial Accounting; 2. Corporate Governance; 3. Audit and Internal Control; 4. Financial Management and Performance; 5. Risk Assessment and Compliance.

José Maria Pimentel holds a BSc degree in Economics from the University of Coimbra, a MSc degree in International Economics and Finance from Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, and an MBA from Católica Lisbon and Nova SBE («Lisbon MBA»). He is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at CIES-Iscte Center for Research and Studies in Sociology, with a project on Decentralization and Quality of Government. He is also a guest professor at the Institute of Public Policies (IPPS) at ISCTE, in Banking Regulation and Supervision, as well as in the  executive training of Católica-Lisbon, where he teaches Critical Thinking. He is also the author of the podcast 45 Graus and the book «Politics at 45 Graus» (Bertrand Editora), where he addresses the ideas of different political ideologies and the current challenges of populism and polarization. He is a “Digital Ambassador” for the European Commission.

Ricardo Barradas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Economy from School of Social Sciences at Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and Integrated Researcher at Centre for the Study of Socioeconomic Change and the Territory (Dinâmia'CET) in Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. His main research interests are in the fields of political economy, post-keynesian economics, financialisation and other related areas. He is author of several scientific articles that are published in reputable international journals, such as Economic and Industrial Democracy, Economic and Labour Relations Review, International Review of Applied Economics, Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Review of Keynesian Economics, Review of Political Economy, Review of Radical Political Economics, among others.