Christian Busch

Christian Busch, PhD, is a business professor at the USC Marshall School of Business and an affiliate researcher at the London School of Economics.

His research focuses on purpose-driven leadership, sustainable innovation, and serendipity. It has been published in journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and MIT Sloan Management Review, and was featured by outlets such as the Financial Times, Forbes, and the BBC. He received several "Best Paper Awards" from the Academy of Management, as well as the Masini Award for Innovative Scholarship, and serves on the Editorial Review Board of the Academy of Management Perspectives, as well as a Guest Editor at the Strategic Management Journal for a Special Issue on "Serendipity, Chance, and Luck in Management and Strategy". He serves as a columnist at German's leading business weekly, Wirtschaftswoche, blogs for Psychology Today, and is a "Subject Matter Expert" of the Academy of Management. 

Christian is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset / Erfolgsfaktor Zufall, a “wise, exciting, and life-changing book” (Arianna Huffington) that “offers excellent practical guidance for all” (Paul Polman, former CEO, Unilever) and has been translated into 12 languages. Previously, he taught at New York University and the LSE.

Christian cofounded Leaders on Purpose and Sandbox Network, was co-director of LSE's Innovation Lab, is a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Forum, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, among CAPITAL's "Top 40 under 40", and on the Thinkers50 Radar list of the management thinkers "most likely to shape the future." In 2018, he received the LSE Department of Management’s 'Teaching Excellence Award' for co-creating/leading a new course, and in 2015 he was invited to give the LSE Commencement Address.

Christian previously worked in business and consulting in Mexico, Germany, the UK, South Africa, and the US, and guest-lectured at Peking University, Stanford University, and Strathmore Business School. He frequently speaks at conferences such as the World Economic Forum, TED/TEDx, and Financial Times Summit, and has worked with senior leadership teams at companies such as MasterCard, Siemens, GSK, DP World, General Electric, Unilever, UBS, and BCG. He received his PhD from the LSE.