Lorenzo Massa

Research profile

Lorenzo Massa is Full Professor at Aalborg University Business School. His work lies at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and sustainability, with a particular interest in how organizations can design business models that address complex challenges while creating fair and lasting value. He is also passionate about science and high-technology entrepreneurship, with a focus on how to commercialize scientific discoveries and emerging technologies.

His research has been published in leading journals such as the Academy of Management Annals and the Journal of Management. He is co-author of several teaching cases with IESE Publishing, and co-authored Sustainable Business Model Design: 45 Patterns, a book that documents practical approaches for designing more sustainable business models.

Lorenzo teaches in executive and graduate programs at institutions including EPFL, AISTS, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and Bologna Business School. He has held academic positions at EPFL and WU Vienna, was a visiting researcher at the Wharton School, and spent research time at MIT Sloan in the context of informal academic collaboration.

Since 2024, Lorenzo has been on partial unpaid leave from Aalborg University to work as an advisor with Change Logic, a Boston-based strategic advisory firm specializing in innovation and organizational transformation.

In addition to his academic and advisory work, he is part of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network—a global community contributing to systems thinking and collaborative innovation. In 2025, he was honored with the Theory to Practice Award by the Vienna Strategy Summit, recognizing his efforts to bridge academic insight and practical impact.

He holds a Master in Research and a Ph.D. in Management from IESE Business School, and engineering degrees from the Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Genoa.