Olaf Plötner is a professor at ESMT. He joined ESMT as one of the first faculty members and managing director of ESMT Customized Solutions GmbH in 2002. From 2011 to 2017, he was the dean of executive education at ESMT and developed the school to a top-ten institution in this field, based on the global ranking of Financial Times. Since January 2019 he is also director of Bringing Technology to Market (BTM) Center at the ESMT and, over the years, has received numerous teaching excellence awards.

Olaf’s research and teaching focuses on strategic management in global B2B markets. His work is e.g. reflected in his book Counter Strategies in Global Markets, published by Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, and SDX Shanghai. His research has been portrayed in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing as well as in leading international media such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal Europe, the Times of India, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, China Daily Europe, People’s Daily (China) and the Financial Times.

Olaf is a visiting professor at Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Before joining ESMT, he also worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Frankfurt and as a director at Siemens AG in Boston (US).