João Claro is Associate Professor with Habilitation of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), and Chairman and CEO of INESC TEC. He is also Director of the PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at FEUP, and President of the Academic Council and Head of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Porto Business School (PBS). His area of focus is Technology Management and Policy.

He currently serves as Scientific Director of the UT Austin Portugal Program. In recent years, he has worked closely with Carnegie Mellon University, namely as the National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, namely as a visiting scholar.

He was a member of the Board of the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO) between 2020 and 2023.

João Claro holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from FEUP (2008), an MSc in Quantitative Methods in Management from PBS (2002), and an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from FEUP (1993). Prior to returning to the University, he was a software engineer and information systems project manager at Edinfor (1994-1998).