Christian Seelos

Christian is the Leo Tindemans Chair for Business Model Innovation at KU Leuven. He is also a research fellow at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and an academic visitor at the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford. Previously, he was the Director of the IESE Platform for Strategy and Sustainability and faculty of the Strategic Management Department at IESE Business School.

He teaches MBA and executive courses in “International Business”, “Strategic Management”, “CSR and Business Ethics”, “Social Innovation”, “Social Entrepreneurship”, and “Strategy and Sustainability”. Christian researches emerging topics at the interface between organizational strategies and global sustainability agendas. This includes novel approaches to social innovation and new business models around topics such as poverty, climate change and water stress. His research on innovative business models in the context of deep poverty was recognized by the Strategic Management Society (Best Paper Award for Practice Implications, 2007) and also won him the Gold Price, 2008 of the IFC-FT research competition on private sector development.

In the 1980s and early 90s he was Associate Professor for Molecular Biology and Cancer Research at the University of Vienna. He published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals in the natural- and social-sciences. He also held several positions in the private industry that included Director at FSG Social Impact Advisors in Geneva, Senior Contract Director at British Telecom Global Services, BT Ignite Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Senior Strategy Consultant at Siemens and Vice President for Portfolio Strategy and Product Development at Transclick Inc. In the mid 1990s, he served as Senior Adviser to the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM and led a number of missions as part of the disarmament of Iraq’s biological weapons programme.