Madis Talmar, MA

Is an assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the TU Eindhoven ITEM Group. Previously he defended his thesis titled 'Designing organizations for innovation in transitioning domains' at TU/e (PhD) and at Aalto University (DSc) in 2018. As a lecturer, is currently responsible for the biggest entrepreneurship course on campus: Introduction to Technology Entreprenership (425+ students); and at Jheronimus Academy of Data Science the master course Data Entrepreneurship in Action III. Madis has been nominated for the Industria Teaching Award for three years in a row (2017, 18 and 19). He is also a pioneer of the LEGO Serious Play methodology at TU/e, introducing it in university education, as well as in support of R&D teams on campus. 

In research, focuses on organizing corporate (open) innovation programs, analyzing and designing innovation ecosystems in conditions of high uncertainty (e.g., low TRL) and governing (public) funding programs for R&D projects. Along with collegues, Madis authored three recent publications on innovation ecosystems, including lead authoring the design of the management tool Ecosystem Pie Model, published in Long Range Planning (see also www.ecosystempie.com). Madis is involved in the 4TU entrepreneurship education research initiative. He currently supervises 2 PhDs and 1 PDEng, being part of the Smart Spaces Interreg project. In terms of sectoral focus, main expertise areas include energy and mobility.

Beyond and before university work, Madis has extensive experience in consulting energy corporations, having served in that capacity for some of the key energy market players in Spain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. His consultancy activities hve included designing and running corporate innovation programs and (user-centred) business development for new services. Prior to working at TU/e, he was the international marketing manager for a small manufacturing company and established three startup companies, one of which was sold. In his home country of Estonia, he has consulted and trained several top companies and written more than 30 articles for the management journal Director. Madis has also worked at corporate banking as an analyst and as a teacher of economics and entrepreneurship at the high school level (5 years). He has supervised a total of more than 70 student theses at the PhD, master,  bachelor and high school levels.