Keynote speakers
Wim Vanhaverbeke
Professor of Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Surrey Business School, United Kingdom
Keynote: Open innovation in complex innovation ecosystems – How to digitally transform healthcare, energy and agriculture?
Wim Vanhaverbeke is Professor of Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Surrey Business School (UK) and is visiting professor at ESADE Business School and till recently also at the National University of Singapore.
He is a dedicated open innovation and innovation ecosystem researcher collaborating with different partners around the globe. His current research focuses on the implications of digital strategies and sustainability requirements for the management of innovation ecosystems. He established the European Innovation Forum with Henry Chesbrough in 2012 and is a co-organizer of the World Open Innovation Conference 2016. He is a frequently asked speaker at leading international conferences and an adviser for several globally operating companies. He consults and organizes workshops for multinationals and technology companies.
He published in different international journals such as Organization Science, Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, California Management Review, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Small Business Economics, Journal of Business Venturing, Technovation, etc. He was co-editor with Henry Chesbrough and Joel West of the books “Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm” (Oxford University Press, 2006) and “New frontiers in open innovation” (Oxford University Press, 2014). He also published an academic volume “Researching open innovation in SMEs” (World Scientific Press, 2018).
He was recognized by the International Association of Management of Technology (IAMOT) as one of the top 50 authors of technology and innovation management during the period 2008-2012. He was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Research Center for Technological Innovation of the Tsinghua University from April 2018 till March 2021.
Thomas Zellweger
Professor of Family Business, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Keynote: Entrepreneurs as scientists: A pragmatist approach to producing value out of uncertainty
Thomas Zellweger holds the Chair in Family Business at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where he is also the Director of the Swiss Research Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (KMU-HSG) and the Academic Director of the Global Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (GCEI-HSG).
After two years in investment banking at Derivative in Brussels, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of St. Gallen. He was a research fellow at Babson College, USA, a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and is a permanent visiting professor at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany. His research focuses on various aspects of the family business, including corporate governance and financial management.
Thomas Zellweger is an editor of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and his research has been published the leading academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science, amongst others. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung counts him with his research amongst the most influential economists in the German speaking world. His research also received several international awards and has been discussed in the international media such in The Economist, Bloomberg, Forbes, and the New York Times. Thomas is a member of supervisory boards of family firms and advises family firm owners on governance and strategic questions.
Rupert Baumgartner
Professor of Sustainability Management, University of Graz, Austria
Kenyote: Sustainable Business Practices: Drivers, Agents of Change and Performance
Rupert J. Baumgartner is professor of sustainability management at the Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, University of Graz, Austria. Since 2011 he is director of this Institute and he acted from 2012 to 2019 as Vice-Dean for research of the Faculty for Regional-, Environmental- and Educational Sciences/University of Graz. He is board member of the International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS).
Before joining the University of Graz, he was senior researcher in the field of strategic management and industrial ecology at the Åbo Akademi University in Finland and at the University of Leoben, Austria. He published more than 40 journal papers in leading academic journals, 3 books and more than 20 book sections. His main research interests are corporate sustainability management, sustainability assessment, LCA, industrial ecology/circular economy, and sustainability-oriented innovation. He was named as DuPont Young Professor 2016 and he was awarded with the Seraphine-Puchleitner-Price 2017 by the University of Graz as the best PhD-supervisor. Since November 2018 he is the director of the Christian-Doppler-Research Laboratory for Sustainable Product Management enabling a Circular Economy.
Jolanda Hessels
Associate Professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
Keynote: An entrepreneur a day keeps the Doctor away – Entrepreneurship and wellbeing
Jolanda’s research focuses on the individual’s occupational choice for entrepreneurship and its outcomes (e.g., earnings, growth, exit, health, and wellbeing). She is at the forefront of developing a new and expanding line of research on health and entrepreneurship. In her research she relates various aspects of health (perceived health, work stress and depression) to different facets of entrepreneurship (entry, performance and exit) combining insights from health and happiness economics, and psychology with small business economics. For example, she published a study on work-related stress and entrepreneurship and one on the link between mental health and entrepreneurial exit.
In her research Jolanda often connects different fields that operate independently but share similar interests. For example, in one recent publication in the Journal of Economic Surveys she has reviewed the intersection of the fields of entrepreneurship economics and development economics in order to contribute to developing a unified scientific approach towards the role of entrepreneurs in economic development.
In her work Jolanda applies existing perspectives to novel areas. For example, she applies the Job Demands-Resources model, developed for employees, to the context of entrepreneurs, and the person – environment fit model, established to assess the fit between individuals and their organisational environment, to the fit between entrepreneurs and their national institutional environment.
She published in various international journals including the Journal of Economic Surveys, Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management and Small Business Economics. She is an Editor of Small Business Economics since 2017.
Jolanda has been the Director of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for the Netherlands from 2005-2014. She is the Co-Director (together with Professor Roy Thurik) of the Center of Advanced Small Business Economics (CASBEC).