Tomas Casas i Klett Professor and Director China Competence Center University of St. Gallen

Tomas is a professor at the University of St. Gallen’s (HSG) Research Institute for International Management (FIM), specializing in international business with a focus on China. His research connects the new institutional realities, business models and the technology trends of the 4^th Industrial Revolution. His teaching experience includes graduate-level courses and executive education in a variety of areas such as innovation, entrepreneurship, doing business in China as well as Japan, Russia and more generally Eurasia, team leadership, corporate governance, or philosophy of science (PhD). He frequently leads international executive education programmes and courses at leading business schools in China including, Tsinghua SEM, Fudan University FDSM, Shanghai Jiaotong University Antai. At the SKOLKOVO Moscow School of Management he is visiting professor and academic advisor to the Dean.  

As a director at the University of St. Gallen’s China Competence Center, Tomas supervises various research initiatives. Among these figure the Sino-Swiss Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China entrepreneurship and innovation. He also works in close collaboration with leading European firms on the St.Gallen Top Team (SGTT) model, aimed at discerning the links between teamwork variables and high firm performance. Tomas also enjoys crafting case studies that bring to life entrepreneurial and business situations in a variety of international settings such as China, Japan or Russia in areas like social e-commerce, business acceleration or the circular economy. His research is inspired by actual management phenomena, the approaches to innovation and the decision-making patterns he has directly encountered in the business world.

Having started his international career at the Wharton Export Network supporting the foreign market entry strategies of American firms, Tomas’ direct interest in Asia began in the early 1990’s when he was privileged to work “as a Japanese employee” at the Tokyo headquarters of a global electronics kaisha. He published his first book on the country’s challenges and potential; Japan's Open Future: An Agenda for Global Citizenship (co-authored with J.P. Lehmann and J. Haffner). His latest book is an edited work titled The Life of Russian Business: (Re)cognizing, (Re)activating and (Re)configuring Institutions.

Tomas graduated with honors from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining in parallel a Japanese language degree from Sophia University in Tokyo. He later earned a Master of Science in Management degree at Fudan University in Shanghai, followed by a Ph.D. (Doctor Oeconomiae) at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.