René Mauer holds the Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at ESCP Business School, Berlin campus. He is the academic head of the Executive Master in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership (EMDIEL), and serves as the European Coordinator of ESCP's European Entrepreneurship Department, the Jean-Baptiste Say Institute of Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining ESCP Business School he was Assistant Professor at RWTH Aachen, where he worked in the fields of entrepreneurship, start-up and growth management and led the university’s start-up centre. 

His area of expertise is entrepreneurial decision-making in venture and corporate contexts. In practice projects he has been working together with SMEs and larger companies such as BASF, BMW, Deutsche Post DHL or P&G. René has worked for 3M, in start-ups and in management consulting. He co-owns a family business, co-founded a technology-start-up and was involved in a variety of other venture projects, one of which is the expert network Effectuation Intelligence that he is a partner of.