Sophie Manigart is faculty dean at Vlerick Business School and full professor at Ghent University.
For more than three decades, Sophie has researched the financing strategies of entrepreneurial companies. As Full Professor of Corporate Finance, she is an expert in venture capital, private equity, business angel finance and entrepreneurial finance. She has published over 50 academic publications in various renowned journals; she has written numerous book chapters, two books and several case studies. She is currently Associate Editor at Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and she has edited several special issues on entrepreneurial finance in top scientific journals. This also enabled her to develop original courses on entrepreneurial finance aimed at both entrepreneurs and investors. Apart from teaching at Vlerick Business School, she has gained international experience staying at Wharton (US) and IE Business School (Spain), next to teaching at several European business schools and short lectures around the world.

She has worked with numerous start-ups developing their financing strategies and with venture capital funds such as Quest for Growth and Qbic, and was a member of the investment committee of Baekeland Fund (spin-off fund of Ghent University). She is consulted as a topic expert by the European Parliament, InvestEurope (formerly the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association) and Belgian and regional governments in Belgium and the Netherlands. Experiencing a gap in the financing of start-ups, she was one of the founders of the first Belgian business angel network, BAN Vlaanderen. She is currently also a board member of the Belgian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, AXA Belgium, BW Ryhove, Ovinto and EnergyVision, and was an independent board member of Gimv for 10 years.