Since the end of April 2022, Dr Christoph Wolff is an honorary professor at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne. With Christoph Wolff, the WiSo Faculty has gained a visionary "doer" who has long been at the forefront of global changes in the mobility and transport industries. With great commitment, the climate, energy and mobility expert Christoph Wolff works in numerous public and private programmes and projects across the globe to actively meet the major challenges our world is facing.
Many students and lecturers of the WiSo faculty already know Christoph Wolff as a committed colleague and university lecturer, not only through his work for the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI), an affiliated institute of the WiSo faculty. He also demonstrated his outstanding expertise in the area of "Innovative Business Models and Digitalisation" in interactive courses on the topic of "Future of Mobility" of the Cologne-Rotterdam EMBA programme at the University of Cologne Business School. He also gave courses on the topic of "Sustainability and Innovation" at the University of Cologne Summer School in New York.
The forming of cooperations between governments, international organisations and companies on a top management level runs like a thread through Professor Wolff's professional life. The institutions and networks created in this way are sustainable drivers of developments, such as the shift towards net-zero emissions in industry and mobility. As a chemical engineer and economist who earned his doctorate almost simultaneously with his MBA at RWTH Aachen University, he keeps an eye on the entire value chain.
His work as head of the mobility platform and member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum is a good example of this. Here he was instrumental in setting up the Mission Possible Platform, an association of public and private partners in heavy industry and mobility. He focused in particular on deep electrification in the road sector, sustainable fuels and power-to-x technologies for aviation, shipping and industries such as chemicals, steel and cement.
Previously, Christoph Wolff was Managing Director of the European Climate Foundation (ECF). His ability to think outside the box in terms of ethics, sustainability and responsibility was demonstrated not least by the initiation and sustainable promotion of think tanks in the field of energy transition and transport transformation, with locally motivated research programmes and a multi-stakeholder council as the governing body.
Innovative thinking based and a high sense of responsibility also characterised Christoph Wolff's actions in previous management positions, including at McKinsey and DB Schenker. This is underlined by his activities for various technology start-ups in the field of energy and mobility. Since May, Prof. Wolff has been CEO of the Smart Freight Centre in Amsterdam, an international non-profit organisation that sets the standard for reporting emissions in global supply chains and works with shippers, transport companies and logistics service providers on reduction measures.
Christoph Wolff develops his skills in cooperative thinking not least in his academic activities on the topic of "Future of Mobility", currently at the University of St. Gallen and the University of California at Davis, in addition to the WiSo faculty. As a researcher, he has emerged with numerous publications.
We are pleased to be able to honour with Dr Christoph Wolff as Honorary Professor, not least an outstanding expert and competent driver of global development, who will contribute to further establishing the shared vision of the WiSo Faculty, true to the faculty motto "Today's ideas. Tomorrow's Impact".