Marcelo Bucheli (PhD Stanford University, 2002; BA, MA in Economics, Universidad de los Andes [Colombia], 1991, 1994) is a professor at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He researches the political economy of multinational corporations in historical perspective and the integration of historical methods in management studies.  His scholarship has been recognized by being appointed as an associate of the  Center for Advanced Study (University of Illinois, 2019-2020), he was the John H. Dunning Fellow in International Business at the Henley Business School (University of Reading, UK) (2014-2017), and also was the Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in Business History at Harvard Business School (2004-2005), where he taught the required business history course to the MBAs.  Other recognitions for his research include the Mira Wilkins Award in Business History (2011), the Petroleum History Institute Article of the Year Award (2009), and the Newcomen-Harvard Award for the Best Article published in Business History Review (2004). At Gies he has taught Global Strategy for MBAs (for which he received teaching awards between 2015 and 2018) and International Business for undergraduate students (for which he has been included in the campus list of excellent teachers nine times).  He was also a visiting lecturer at the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) where he taught Global Strategy (2019-2020), was a visiting scholar at the École Polytechnique (Paris) (2013), and has taught summer courses on economic history at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), international business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2014) and a graduate course on business history at Kyoto University (Japan) (2017).

Marcelo’s research follows an interdisciplinary approach that combines business history, international business, management studies, political science, and economic history. For his first line of research (the political economy of multinational corporations in historical perspective), Marcelo has published one book-length research monograph (Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899-2000. New York: New York University Press, 2005), an edited collection (Big Business and Dictatorships in Latin America. New York: Palgrave, 2021) with Victoria Basualdo and Hartmut Berghoff, and articles on the oil, telecommunications, and agricultural industries in Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, , Peru, South Africa, and Venezuela in journals such as Australian Journal of Economic History, Business History, Business History Review, Enterprise and Society, Entreprises et Histoire, Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Economic History, Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, and Strategic Management Journal, plus a number of chapters in edited collections. Three of these articles received awards from scholarly societies.

For his second line of research (the integration of historical methods in management studies) he has published an edited collection (Organizations in Time: Theory, History, Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) and articles in Academy of Management Perspectives, Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of International Business Policy, and Journal of Business Ethics, and various book chapters.

Marcelo has put his research in dialogue with issues that concern managers in articles in Harvard Business Review and by teaching strategy to executives. He also made his findings available to wider audiences by appearing in the Netflix documentary Cuba Libre (2017), directed by Emmanuel Amara.

A long-time member of the Business History Conference, he was elected trustee (2011-2013) and was also the associate editor for book reviews of Enterprise and Society (2009-2012).  Additionally, he has been the chair of the John Rovensky Fellowship in US economic and business history (University of Illinois Foundation, since 2014), chair of the Ralph Gomory book award (2012), and a member of the Philip Scranton article award (2017).

An American citizen, Marcelo was born in Venezuela and grew up in Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador, countries where he spent his childhood and youth.