Max Zedtwitz

Max von Zedtwitz is a professor of global innovation, R&D and product development, especially with respect to emerging markets such as China, at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), with adjunct roles at KTU in Lithuania and at SDU in Denmark. With Oliver Gassmann, he co-founded GLORAD with initial offices in Beijing and St. Gallen (2003). He has also been a professor at Tsinghua University in China (2003), Skoltech in Moscow (2013), and IMD in Switzerland (2000).

As a Vice President with PRTM Management Consultants (2008), Max was co-responsible for their global R&D practice and an overall lead for global product development and China innovation projects. He was also co-founder and Managing Director of AsiaCompete Int’l, a business intelligence firm in Shanghai (2005). He has led more than 60 consulting engagements in R&D, technology and innovation strategy, product development operations, global strategy, productivity improvements, product life-cycle management, organizational road-mapping and design, corporate incubation, start-up management, international management, China business and corporate M&A. He has worked in all global markets, with top MNCs from almost all industries, as well as small start-up firms and incubators.

According to GoogleScholar, he is the #1 cited author on global innovation and #1 on incubation, and #5 in both R&D management and product innovation. His most recent book is “Responsible Product Innovation”, published by Springer in 2018. Max has written more than 100 scientific articles and 17 books; he also is on the editorial advisory board of nine journals, including the highly ranked Global Strategy Journal, Technovation, and R&D Management. He has been quoted in periodicals such as the Economist, China Daily and the New York Times. In 2009, he was recognized as one of the 50 most influential innovation scholars worldwide. He also won best paper awards in the R&D Management journal and the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and was recognized as the top researcher at KTU in 2018.

Max holds Ph.D. and MBA degrees from the University of St. Gallen, and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from ETH Zurich. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He travels between California, China and Europe.

Primary research areas

• Global R&D and innovation, emerging market innovation
• Operational strategies in MNCs
• Corporate incubation and corporate venturing
• Doing business in / with China
• Responsible, frugal, and reverse innovation
• Ethical and social value creation