MBS × Weatherhead DBA Conference 2026

David Wagner is Professor for International Business and Digital Business, Academic Director for the Doctor in Business Administration (DBA) and Vice Dean for Research at Munich Business School. He teaches, does research, and consults in the fields of digital strategy, digital innovation, and digital transformation. He is the winner of the MBS Teaching Award 2022 and the MBS Research Award 2023.

Associate Professor, Department of Design & Innovation, Weatherhead School of Management

Richard Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor of Case Western Reserve University. He researches leadership, emotional intelligence, coaching, and neuroscience. Ranked in the top .05% of all worldwide scientists (Scholar GPS 2023 – 2025), his latest book is The Science of Change: Discovering Sustained, Desired Change from Individuals to Organizations and Communities.

Christine Menges is Chancellor of Munich Business School, responsible for strategic leadership and administrative and fiscal management. She brings over 15 years of senior leadership experience at top private and public European business schools, including WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany) and Anglia Ruskin University (UK). She holds a PhD from the University of St Gallen (Switzerland).

Miyeon Jung is an Assistant Professor of Marketing, Design and Innovation at Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on digital marketing, digital healthcare, and AI ethics, utilizing field experiments and econometric methods. Her work has been published in the Journal of Marketing and Production and Operations Management, and featured in Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal.

Christian Schmidkonz is Professor for International Business and Managerial Economics and Academic Director of the Master International Business at Munich Business School. He is a China expert, has worked at the ifo Institute for Economic Research, Capgemini, and is a partner at THINK!DESK China Research & Consulting. He teaches China-related business topics and the Success Factor Happiness.

Chris Laszlo, PhD is Professor at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. His first book, The Sustainable Company, was published in 2003. Author of four other books on sustainable business, all published by Stanford University Press, his research has been published in a wide range of journals such as Organizational Dynamics, Business and Society Review, The European Financial Review, and The Engaged Management ReView.

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Tibor is the CEO of Volkswagen Insurance Company, the captive insurer of the Volkswagen Group, based in Dublin. He has over 20 years of international experience in insurance, reinsurance, strategy, and finance, with senior leadership roles across Europe and China. Outside his professional role, he has a strong personal interest in aviation.

Rebecca Bragg teaches law and strategy as a Management Lecturer with the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Her research focuses on succession transitions within family businesses.  As an attorney, she specializes in business succession planning, and estate planning.  She enjoys volunteering and supporting philanthropic partnerships.

Salvador De la Torre is a doctoral researcher at Munich Business School. His research focuses on organizational onboarding, digital transformation, and employee outcomes, with particular interest in how digital practices shape performance, engagement, and long-term development. He combines professional experience in consulting and currently works in the mayor Germany organization in the sector of security technology.

In the pharmaceutical industry, my path has taken me from supply chain management to global procurement and now into AI - where I’m driving initiatives that boost efficiency and help teams work better together worldwide. Pursuing a DBA on AI value measurement allows me to quantify innovation’s impact and apply research driven strategies to create long term organizational benefits.

Kai has over 24 years of experience in management consulting, transformation leadership, programme and project management, and executive coaching. He has successfully turned around failing initiatives in complex organisational settings. His DBA research explores how leadership, sensemaking and organisational energy can be used to create momentum and enable large-scale digital transformations to succeed from the outset.

Sebastian is focusing on sustainable brand management and consumer behavior. His research explores how sustainability can be effectively integrated into product design and marketing strategies to enhance brand image and purchase decisions, with a particular emphasis on the motorcycle protective apparel industry.

Tanita is researching the intersection of leadership, technology (AI), and organisational culture. Alongside her doctoral studies, she works at Microsoft, focusing on customer success, innovation, and fostering inclusive workplace transformation.

Audrey Pariente is an AI and Communication Strategy Expert in the semiconductor industry and a doctoral researcher at Munich Business School. Her research examines how artificial intelligence shapes strategic decision-making and the cognitive foundations of leadership. She combines senior experience in European Union institutions with leadership roles in the technology sector.

Constantin works as a Line of Business Manager in the German property insurance sector. His research focuses on Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) in property insurance, examining institutional and stakeholder drivers, practical barriers, and effective implementation approaches.

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Said is a Strategy Advisor at Cognizant, based in Frankfurt, focusing on AI adoption in Finance and HR and contributing to the Responsible AI Offering Hub. He is currently pursuing a DBA, with research focused on Explainable AI (XAI).

Dave is a career U.S. Army special operations veteran and doctoral student studying how social networks, belonging, and social identity shape veterans’ post-service transitions and well-being. His research examines why similarly trained veterans experience divergent outcomes, and how community-based relationships and institutions can support healthier identity reconstruction and flourishing.

Ben Wixson is a practitioner-scholar at CWRU researching digital manufacturing technology implementation. He is a Design & Innovation, Fowler Center, and Nonprofit Fellow at Weatherhead, a Group Manager at The Morse Group, and an adjunct professor at Kettering University. His prior graduate studies are in Business Analytics at Cornell University, with undergraduate Economics studies at the University of Michigan–Dearborn.