Ms Prof. Dr. Christine Volkmann
Biography
Professor Dr. Christine K. Volkmann studied Business Administration at the University of Giessen from 1981 to 1986. From 1986 to 1989, she worked there as a research assistant and earned her doctorate in Corporate Planning with the support of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
From 1989 to 1999, she worked at Deutsche Bank. Her career included positions in the Corporate Development department at the headquarters in Frankfurt am Main and in corporate banking at the Dortmund and Cologne branches. Most recently, she was responsible for corporate security and succession planning in Frankfurt.
From April 1999 to August 2008, she was a professor of Business Administration, specializing in Management and Entrepreneurship, at the Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences (Westphalian University of Applied Sciences). She also served there as the Managing Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In 2005, she was awarded the UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship and Intercultural Management.
In September 2008, Christine Volkmann assumed the chair of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (since 2022, the Chair of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transformation, jointly held with Prof. Dr. Lambert T. Koch) at the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics at the University of Wuppertal. Since 2010, she has held the UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship and Intercultural Management at the University of Wuppertal, and since 2019, she was chosen as the co-spokesperson for the German UNESCO Chairs.
She is a board member of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research (IGIF). In 2011, she founded the interdisciplinary Jackstädt Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research and has chaired the center ever since. In 2018, she initiated a university-wide, regional innovation lab, which has served as the University of Wuppertal's start-up center since 2020. Also in 2020, she and her team, as part of a project funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy (MWIKE) of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, were tasked with establishing a university network across North Rhine-Westphalia focusing on "Women Entrepreneurs in Science."
Beyond her teaching and research activities, Christine Volkmann is involved in numerous national and international entrepreneurship projects, for example, within the context of UNESCO and the World Economic Forum. One example is the development and establishment of a continuing education MBA program in "Business Management and Innovation Management" at the Bucharest University of Economics (ASE), Romania, which was accredited by FIBAA in October 2007. In her teaching and research, she collaborates with university departments and institutions, particularly in Western and Eastern Europe. Further, she serves as an expert consultant for various EU organizations in the field of entrepreneurship.
Christine Volkmann is also actively involved in national and international entrepreneurship networking and maintains numerous corporate partnerships with both SMEs and large companies. From 2001 to 2009, she was a member of the board of directors of the scientific society FGF "Förderkreis Gründungs-Forschung e.V. Entrepreneurship - Innovation - Mittelstand" (Association for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship Research) and its treasurer. From 2007 until its dissolution in 2017, she was a Scientific Advisor to the European Entrepreneurship Research organization EFER (European Forum for Entrepreneurship Research). For many years, she has volunteered as a jury member for prestigious competitions (e.g., the NRW Founders' Award, EY Entrepreneur of the Year) and served on the NRW Digital Economy Advisory Board from 2018 to 2022. In 2023, she was appointed by Minister Mona Neubaur to the Advisory Board for the Young Digital Economy of North Rhine-Westphalia at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy.
Her teaching and research activities currently focus primarily on sustainable and social entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
