Prof. Dr. Christoph Seckler is a Juniorprofessor of Entrepreneurial Strategy at ESCP Business School in Berlin. He holds the Chair of Entrepreneurial Strategy, he is the Academic Director of U-SCHOOL, and he co-founded the Center for Design Science in Entrepreneurship. In 2021, the German magazine Capital included him in its "Top 40 Under 40" and its "Top 10 Upcoming Business Scholars". In 2016/2017, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.
Christoph believes that entrepreneurship can be a force for good in society; at least, one idea at a time. For him, entrepreneurship goes beyond starting a startup. It means developing novel solutions for people’s needs. This can be anything from a novel search algorithm to make the world’s information universally accessible (Google) to a novel microcredit service to fight poverty (Grameen Bank). He aims at fostering entrepreneurship through his research, teaching, as well as through design science projects.
His research converges around the question of how to leverage adversity. This means he is interested in how individuals, teams, and organizations can overcome and benefit from challenging situations. He studies, for example, how entrepreneurs can learn from failure, how teams can develop resilience in error-prone environments, or how firms develop capabilities to take advantage of quickly changing environments. Previous research on these topics has been published in leading international journals such as Accounting Organizations and Society, Journal of Management Studies, and Academy of Management Discoveries. His research has received three "Best Paper Awards" at the Academy of Management.
In his teaching, Christoph's ambition is to empower people to make a difference. He believes that this requires an educational approach that goes beyond the sharing of knowledge. His ambition is to help people to develop in their "thinking," "doing," and "being." His teaching has a strong emphasis on action and interaction in the classroom. He is the recipient of a "Best Teacher Award" at ESCP Business School.
Christoph is passionate about helping firms to develop a better error culture. A good error culture is at the heart of agile, innovative, and high-performing organizations. He frequently writes, speaks, and consults on the topic. His work is frequently covered in media such as Financial Times, World Economic Forum, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, t3n, Business Punk, and GQ. In 2023, he co-published the Error Culture Report for Germany. Please reach out to him in case you are interested in cooperating with him or visit his website for more information.