Hans Brechbühl

Hans Brechbühl is the Executive Director of the Center for Digital Strategies and an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Hans leads the center’s outreach and partnership-building efforts, building relationships with Global 1000 corporations in the Americas, Europe and increasingly, Asia. His research interests focus on the digital transformation and organizational change, the role of the CIO / CDO and corporate IT in today’s corporations, and the challenges of information security in a collaborative, networked environment.

Hans is serving a two-year term as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society, serves as a judge for the CIO 100 Awards, and is an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Security, Technology and Society at Dartmouth College.

Hans came to Tuck in 2001 from New York City-based Trade.com/BlueStone Capital, where he was senior VP, global partnerships. Prior to that, he was group VP of corporate development for Metromedia International Telecommunications, Inc. where he led both business development and strategy, leading deal negotiations in the telecom, cable and internet space. Prior to Metromedia, Hans was managing director of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business from 1993-1998, co-directing a $3.5 million independent business education institute focused on business in emerging markets. At Michigan, he built corporate partnerships with many Fortune 500 companies and companies indigenous to the emerging markets of Central & Eastern Europe, Russia and China. In a previous life, Hans served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army for ten years, where he led tactical units on the Iron Curtain in Europe.

Hans holds a master’s degree from Harvard University, a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is an alum of the University of Michigan’s Global Leadership Program executive course and a graduate of the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey.

Current Research Topics

• Role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Digital Officer (CDO)
• Digital transformation and organizational change
• Role and development of information security
• Digital strategies and collaboration

Professional Activities

Academic positions

• Tuck School of Business, 2001–present
• Faculty Director, Business Engagement and the Information Security Professional, Tuck Executive Education, 2008–present
• Affiliated Faculty, Institute for Security Technology Studies, Dartmouth College, 2005–present
• Executive Director, Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies, Tuck School, 2001–present
• Director of Operations, 1993–95, Managing Director, 1995–98, William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan Business School

Nonacademic positions

• Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships, Trade.com Global Markets (BlueStone Capital), 2000
• Group Vice President, Corporate Development, Metromedia International Telecommunications, Inc., 1998–2000
• Change Management Consultant, Tichy-Cohen Associates, 1997–98
• Officer, U.S. Army, Military Intelligence, U.S. Army- Europe (Germany), 1982–89

Board memberships

• Member, World Economic Forum's Global Council on the Future of Software & Society, 2014–present
• Board, Sports Venue Foundation (Upper Valley Aquatic Center), Hartford, VT, 2011–2015
• Advisory Board, Waldorf School of Garden City, NY, 2014–present
• Advisory Board, New England Technology Summit, 2003–06
• Board of Trustees, Upper Valley Waldorf School, Quechee, VT, 2002–05
• Board of Trustees, Waldorf School of Garden City, NY, 1999–2009

Editorial positions

• Judge, CIO 100 Awards, 2012–present
• Editor, CISO Workshop overview series, 2011–present
• Editor, Roundtable on Digital Strategies overview series, 2001–present

Selected Publications

• With A. Trnjanin, "Im Zeitalter des Kunden gibt dieser das Tempo vor," Handelszeitung (CH), Digital Transformation Issue, April 14, 2016
• Contributor, Deep Shift: 21 Ways Software Will Transform Global Society, World Economic Forum, November 2015
• With S. Berghaus, T. Sammer and A. Back, "Balancing Innovation and Operations: Opportunities and Challenges of Second Generation Enterprise Mobility," Journal of Management Systems, Volume: 3, Issue: 24, 2014
• With T. Sammer and A. Back, "The New Enterprise Mobility: Seizing the Opportunities and Challenges in Corporate Mobile IT," Americas' Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), August 2013
• With R. Bruce, S. Dynes, M.E. Johnson, "Protecting Critical Information Infrastructure: Developing Cybersecurity Policy," Information Technology for Development (online edition), May 21, 2009
• With S. Dynes and M.E. Johnson, "Information Security in the Extended Enterprise: Some Initial Results from a Field Study of an Industrial Firm," proceedings, Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, Harvard University, 2005
• "Best Practices for Service Organizations," Business Strategy Review (a London Business School publication), 15(1), Spring 200
• With S. Ferencikova, "Transition at Whirlpool Tatramat: How to Enter Emerging Markets in Central and Eastern Europe," William Davidson Institute, 1999