Carlota Perez (; born September 20, 1939, in Caracas) is a British-Venezuelan scholar specialized in technology and socio-economic development. She researches the concept of Techno-Economic Paradigm Shifts and the theory of great surges, a further development of Schumpeter's work on Kondratieff waves. In 2012 she was awarded the Silver Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation and in 2021 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Utrecht University. Career Perez is currently Honorary Professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London; Honorary Professor at SPRU, University of Sussex; and Adjunct Professor of Technology and Socio-Economic Development at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTEch), Tallinn, Estonia. She is also the Academic-in-Residence at Anthemis UK. From 2013 to 2016 she was Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. Prior to that she was affiliated to CERF (Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance) and the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. She regularly gives visiting lectures at other universities around the world. Her career began at the Central University of Venezuela where she studied the structural causes of the energy crisis in the mid-1970s and then in the civil service at the Institute of Foreign Trade in relation to the technology aspects of the North-South Dialogue (1975–1977). As founding Director of Technology in the Ministry of Industry (1980–1983), she established the first venture capital agency, FINTEC. She has been consultant to most of the major public and private companies in Venezuela, in particular to INTEVEP, the Research and Development affiliate of PDVSA, the national petroleum company. As international consultant, she has worked for various multilateral organizations, including the OECD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNESCO, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the Andean Pact and the World Bank. She has also acted as consultant for major corporations (including IBM, Ericsson, Telefónica, Cisco, Sogeti, ING Bank and the cooperative Mondragon), industry associations, ministries and councils of industry, Science and Technology, R&D institutes and development banks in many countries in Latin America and in other regions (notably Canada, Norway and Estonia). Several elements of the European Union's Lisbon Strategy were based on her work, and in 2015 she was Chair of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Expert Group for Green Growth and Jobs. Theory Carlota Perez is a neo-Schumpeterian and Christopher Freeman was her mentor and husband, with