Dr. Leonora Buckland is a senior research scholar at ESADE Center for Social Impact (ECSI) in Barcelona, Spain specializing in the social economy, philanthropy, impact management and impact investment. She has been part of the field of venture philanthropy and impact management from the early days. 

She co-teaches the undergraduate course on impact management at ESADE for fourth-year Batchelor in Transformation Leadership and Social Impact with Dean of Esade, Dr. Lisa Hehenberger and contributes to other courses in the MsC in Sustainability and MBA programmes. In 2025, she was a visiting professor at the University of Turin in 2025 teaching on gender lens investing. 

Leonora has authored many practitioner-oriented studies and articles for well-respected practitioner publications such as the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The latest publications she has co-authored at ECSI include one on the governance of impact and another on the link between strategy and impact management. 

Besides conducting research and teaching, she leads / co-leads consultancy projects for different clients, such as Access Foundation (UK), Carasso Foundation (Spain), SYSTEMIQ (UK), BMW Foundation (Germany) and Rothschild Foundation (UK) amongst others. She has volunteered for many years at Samaritans (UK-based NGO) and is a trustee of Ship2B Foundation (Spain). 

Prior to working at the ESADE Center for Social Impact, she was Executive Director of a UK charitable foundation the Venture Partnership Foundation. She has a BA and a PhD from the University of Oxford. Leonora lives and works in Spain and the UK. Fluent: Spanish, English (mother tongue).