Curriculum vitae
The main stations, in short.
Positions
2026 –Professor at ZHAW and co-director of the Institute of Marketing Management.
2016 –Professor of Business Administration (Information Management), University of St.Gallen.
2024 – 27Principal investigator with Pattie Maes at the MIT Media Lab, Fluid Interfaces group, in the HPI–MIT Designing for Sustainability Program (MIT profile).
2019Full professor of Design Thinking and Innovation Management, Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam.
2023Head of the HPI d-school and Professional Development, a unit of more than 60 people.
2010 – 16Assistant Professor of Information Management, University of St.Gallen.
2008 – 19Managing partner of IT Management Partner St. Gallen AG, an HSG spin-off for transformation by design in large organisations.
2004 – 05Business analyst, Deloitte Business Consulting.
Community
2011 –President and founding member of SUGAR, a global design thinking network founded with Larry Leifer at Stanford University, with more than 20 universities.
2022 –Steering committee of the d-school Afrika, University of Cape Town.
Research
2025 – 27Principal investigator with Pattie Maes, Fluid Interfaces group, MIT Media Lab: Predicting problematic phone use: contextual and physiological indicators for early detection, as the basis for adaptive interventions. HPI–MIT Designing for Sustainability Program.
2024 – 25Principal investigator with Pattie Maes, MIT Media Lab: conversations with an AI-generated future self and healthier food choices, tested in a randomised controlled trial with 400 participants. HPI–MIT Designing for Sustainability Program.
2022 – 24Research collaboration with the MIT Center for Information Systems Research on digital strategies in incumbent firms.
2019 – 22Three funded projects in the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program with Larry Leifer, Stanford University: how organisations measure, steer and embed human-centred digital innovation, with research workshops at Stanford and in Potsdam.
2010 – 19Head of the Design Thinking Group at the University of St.Gallen, with partners from banking, insurance and industry.
21 completed doctorates under my supervision; my former doctoral students now work at Google, SAP Fioneer, Volkswagen, ZHAW and elsewhere.
Student start-ups under my supervision include ProGlove (exit 2022) and Vimcar (exit 2023).
Awards
2022Best Paper, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, for Loss aversion nudges to improve heating behavior and reduce carbon emissions.
2022Best Paper in Track, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS).
2004Best graduate of the year in Information Management, University of Regensburg.
Education
2005 – 08Doctorate, University of St.Gallen. Advisers: Walter Brenner and Helmut Krcmar.
1999 – 04Studies in Information Management, University of Regensburg.