Philipp Sandner (23 February 1980 – 16 January 2024) was a German economist and professor in the area of business and IT at the

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management Frankfurt School of Finance & Management Frankfurt School of Finance & Management is a private university with a right to award doctorates, recognized under Hesse’s Higher Education Act. The parent organization is the Frankfurt School of Fin ...

Life and career

Sandner was born in Heidelberg. Following his Abitur, he completed

civilian service Alternative civilian service, also called alternative services, civilian service, non-military service, and substitute service, is a form of national service performed in lieu of military conscription for various reasons, such as conscientious ...

in 1999 and studied

business administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

specialising in business and also IT at the University of Mannheim and at the Copenhagen Business School from 2000 to 2005. From 2005 to 2009, he worked as a researcher at the Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

with Dietmar Harhoff as advisor. He obtained his doctorate as Dr oec. publ. with his dissertation on “The Valuation of Intangible Assets” with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2009. He also completed his Master of Business Research (MBR) at this institution. He attended the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at the University of California at Berkeley for a research placement in 2008. From 2010 to 2012, he worked as a postdoc and researcher at the Chair for Strategy and Organisation with Isabell Welpe as advisor at the Technical University of Munich. From 2010 to 2015, Sandner was co-founder and partner of the Munich Innovation Group, a business consulting company specialised in innovation strategy and technology transfer. He became professor at the

in 2015. In February 2017, the Blockchain Center was founded at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management with Sandner being the head of this unit. The Frankfurt School Blockchain Center analyses topics such as the implications of blockchain technology for companies and the economy and aims to provide a knowledge-sharing platform for decision-makers, start-ups, technology and industry experts. Due to his expertise, Sandner was appointed to the FinTech Council of the Federal Ministry of Finance (Germany) in 2017, as well as to the working group of the ''EU Blockchain Observatory'' of the European Union. Furthermore, the working group “National Risk Analysis”, established by the Federal Ministry of Finance, has involved Sandner in matters concerning crypto assets such as Bitcoin. In 2022, he joined the Digital Finance Forum (DFF) initiated by the Federal Ministry of Finance (Germany). The German business magazine

Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

listed Sandner in the category “Top 40 under 40”. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he was also among Germany's most influential economists in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Sandner died on 16 January 2024, at the age of 43.

Research and teaching

Sandner conducted research particularly in the areas of

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

technology,

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

, crypto assets, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), distributed ledger technology (DLT), digital programmable euro, stablecoins, and digital securities. He continued to deal with corporate entrepreneurship,

digital transformation Digital transformation is the adoption of digital technology by an organization to digitize non-digital products, services or operations. The goal for its implementation is to increase value through innovation, invention, customer experience or ef ...

(such as by fintech start-ups), strategic innovation, financing of start-ups (by means of strategic investors, business angels and venture capital, etc.) and intellectual property rights, for example. Sandner received several scholarships and best paper awards. His research work was published in international journals such as the

Journal of Marketing The ''Journal of Marketing'' is a bimonthly scholarly journal that publishes peer-reviewed research in marketing. It is published by the American Marketing Association. Established in 1936, It is the fourth-oldest major journal covering marketing ...

, Administrative Science Quarterly,

Research Policy Science policy is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Topics include the funding of science, the careers of scientists, and the translation of scientific disc ...

, the

Journal of Marketing Research ''Journal of Marketing Research'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Marketing Association. It was established in 1964 and covers all aspects of marketing research. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', ...

and the

Journal of Business Venturing The ''Journal of Business Venturing'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed multidisciplinary academic journal publishing research on all aspects of entrepreneurship. Its scope spans the disciplines of economics, psychology, and sociology. It was establish ...

. Topics covered by his teaching including digitisation, entrepreneurship, innovation management and intellectual property rights.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandner, Philip 1980 births 2024 deaths Scientists from Frankfurt German economists Copenhagen Business School alumni University of Mannheim alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni