Christian Busch, PhD, is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset (Erfolgsfaktor Zufall), a “wise, exciting, and life-changing book” (Arianna Huffington) that “provides excellent practical guidance for all” (Paul Polman, former CEO, Unilever) and has been translated into 12 languages. Christian is a business professor at the USC Marshall School of Business and an affiliate researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE). Previously, he taught at New York University and the LSE, where he received the Teaching Excellence Award and was invited to deliver the Commencement Address. His research focuses on serendipity, purpose-driven leadership, and sustainable innovation, with publications in leading journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, and MIT Sloan Management Review.
His work has been featured by global media outlets, including the Financial Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and the BBC. Christian has received multiple Best Paper Awards from the Academy of Management and was honored with the Masini Award for Innovative Scholarship. He serves on the Editorial Review Board of Academy of Management Perspectives, is a Guest Editor for Strategic Management Journal’s special issue on serendipity and strategy, and recognized as one of the Academy of Management’s ‘Subject Matter Experts.’ He is a columnist for WirtschaftsWoche and blogs for Psychology Today.
Beyond academia, Christian co-founded Leaders on Purpose and the Sandbox Network, served as Co-Director of LSE’s Innovation Lab, and was Director of NYU’s Global Economy Program. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Forum and has advised senior leadership teams at MasterCard, Siemens, GSK, DP World, BCG, and other global organizations. He has spoken at events such as TEDx, the World Economic Forum, and the Financial Times Summit, among others. With a background in business and consulting across Mexico, Germany, the UK, Kenya, and the US, Christian has also guest-lectured at Peking University, Stanford University, and Kenya’s Strathmore Business School. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, was named among CAPITAL’s “Top 40 Under 40”, and was featured on the Thinkers50 Radar as one of the management thinkers “most likely to shape the future.” Christian holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.