Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I am from Heidelberg, Germany. As an Associate Professor of Management at Wharton, I specialize in entrepreneurship and innovation, guiding startups and corporations in transforming ideas into successful ventures. My teaching emphasizes practical strategies for building, scaling, and growing businesses, drawing from my research and experience as a founder-CEO of a company. I am an expert on what allows individuals and companies to collaborate and compete effectively. I have identified key factors in studies of sports such as Formula One, soccer, basketball, or chess as well as in various industries (e.g., enterprise software, video games). I have recently focused on the topic of founder- and CEO-succession. Getting founder- & CEO-Successions right is crucial. You know this from a relay race: You can run as fast as you want, but if you fail to pass the baton to the next runner, you and your company fail. Mastering the CEO succession is challenging: the current CEO needs to resign, a successor needs to be found, the company must be ready for the succession, the successor needs to be onboarded, and so on. Expectations are high, and the danger of disappointment is looming large.
Consulting Piezunka & Schamoni - Information Technologies (CPS-IT) creates websites and SaaS for medium sized firms, corporations and governmental organizations. It serves clients in more than 60 countries (including the German Chambers of Commerce and the Federal Ministry for the Environment) and employs more than 15 people full time (www.cps-it.de). The company has continued to do well since I left for Stanford and recently celebrated its 15th birthday.