Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Friederike Welter, Member of Academia Europaea (MAE), is full-time President of the Institute for Small Business Research (IfM) in Bonn. She also holds the chair of Business Administration, specializing in the management of small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurship, at the University of Siegen.

Among other things, she is a member of the Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI), the SME Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, chair of the “EXIST” Expert Advisory Board, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority.

For her research on small and medium-sized enterprises, the economist received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in 2023 and was appointed a member of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation. In 2021, she was admitted to the Academia Europaea and in 2020 to the prestigious circle of 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellows. In 2017, she received the Greif Research Impact Award from the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, University of Southern California. In 2014, she was honored with admission to the prestigious circle of Wilford L. White Fellows and in 2011 she was accepted into the circle of ECSB Fellows.