New Head of Further Education for Entrepreneurship & Management

In July 2014 Christian Schimmelpfennig takes over as the new Director of Executive Education  at the Institute for Entrepreneurship. With his title story ‘Tiki-taka for managers’ in the current issue of the Harvard Business Manager magazine, he is already passing on valuable insights from leadership research to senior executives.
Aged 31, Christian Schimmelpfennig comes to this newly created position of Director of Executive Education at the Institute for Entrepreneurship of the University of Liechtenstein from a background of international activity in the marketing and positioning of university further education courses. In facing this new challenge, he has made it his aim to establish Liechtenstein as a powerful brand with a more than regional influence on the international further education market, and to shape the university’s further education courses even more effectively in response to the needs of Liechtenstein’s companies, most of which have an international base.



Christian Schimmelpfennig is the new Director of Executive Education for Entrepreneurship & Management


Tiki-taka for managers
To write his leading article for the July issue of the highly regarded Harvard Business Manager magazine, Christian Schimmelpfennig worked with Professor Wolfgang Jenewein, Director of the Executive MBA course at the University of St. Gallen, and other co-authors for years, comparing team leadership in professional football and in companies. The authors came to the conclusion that in top-ranking successful professional football clubs, leadership is already very much better equipped to bring out the potential of teams increasingly made up of generation Y team members in an ever more complex environment.   

Speed, complexity and the swarm of employees
The professors’ article shows in five lessons what executive staff can learn from practical leadership in top clubs. The changes in modern football – rapid passing, constant switches of position and changing expectations of the teams – are not unlike those in the business world of internationally active enterprises. But professional footballers have already been rethinking things at leadership level, in order to meet these challenges.  

With their article, the authors have hit a nerve internationally. Soon after it came out, it was translated into English and posted on the online portal of the famous Harvard Business Review. Then the Harvard Business Review Turkey made the article available to its readers in their own language; translations into Korean and other languages are in the pipeline.   

Article to download
Article in Harvard Business Manager
Article in Harvard Business Review


Christian Schimmelpfennig in the spotlight
Following various management positions in companies of the Epiq Group, DATEV eG and Rödl & Partner, Christian Schimmelpfennig opted for a career path in the educational sector. He holds a diploma in Business Management from the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany, a Master of Science degree from Syddansk University, Denmark, and has recently submitted a dissertation to the famous University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Before being appointed Director of Executive Training for Entrepreneurship & Management at the University of Liechtenstein, he was Programme Manager of the Omnium Global Executive MBA of the universities of St. Gallen and Toronto.

Further information at www.uni.li/christian.schimmelpfennig.