Department of Business Humanities and Law

I have been professor of business history at Copenhagen Business School since 2002. Since my student years in the 1980s, I have focused on economic and financial history of the 19th and 20th centuries with a special interest in financial crises and the role of banks and central banks in the interwar period as a time of significant uncertainty and transformation. Over time my approach has developed from economic history into a broader contextual view of the role of business, finance and financiers in society. My thinking has shifted towards a more culturally based understanding of finance and the economy in history. In particular, I have contributed to introducing narrative and cultural approaches in my field. In addition to financial history, I have published on the business history of Danish modern furniture design. Today, I am interested in how institutions, culture, business and the economy interact, and how societal crises and periods of radical uncertainty contribute to transformations of capitalism and within different fields.

n 2020 and 2021, I was a member of the Independent Research Fund Denmark | Humanities, and I was president of the US-based Business History Conference from 2013-2014. I have given keynote talks and won several prizes for my research, most recently the 2018 Hagley Prize for the best book in Business History. I was a visiting scholar at Rutgers University (1997-1998), UC Berkeley (2004-2005), Harvard Business School (fall semester 2005) and Stern School of Business, NYU (spring semesters 2009 and 2011), where I have also taught several courses. Over the years, I have written more than 100 articles for Danish national newspapers, appeared on television and radio numerous times, and contributed to a number of podcasts.