Prof. Dr. Andres Claudius Pfister

Education director

Personal profile

Andres Pfister holds the position of Professor of Leadership at the Institute of Applied Psychology IAP at ZHAW one of the leading leadership development institutions in Switzerland.

Current role(s) and activities

He is a lecturer in the MAS Leadership & Management course (Topics: Leading with Goals, Problem Solving, Ethics, Agile, Team) and a variety of other university leadership courses. In addition to his lecturing activities, Andres consults to many organizations and individuals on various leadership topics. He is the project manager and trainer for several customer specific leadership development programs, where agility in its various forms is becoming a core topic in an increasing number of organizations.

Andres’ customers reach from small architectural offices to large telecommunications enterprises, from team leaders to CEOs. As agility becomes part of organisations, he increasingly coaches leaders in the agile transformation.

Besides lecturing and consulting Andres does research on decision making, destructive leadership behavior and leadership in architecture and civil engineering. He is an editor of the 5th edition of the “Handbook of Applied Psychology for Leaders” (Lippmann, Pfister & Jörg, 2018) authoring chapters on leadership theory, problem solving, leading with goals, basics of psychology, as well as on power and micro politics.

Before joining the Institute of Applied Psychology IAP Andres developed for 6.5 years future and current military professionals at the Swiss Military Academy MILAK at ETH. This first as a research assistant and during 2.5 years as the head a.i. of the department for leadership and communication. During his time at the MILAK he finished his PhD at the University of Zurich developing and testing a holistic leadership model.

Besides working, lecturing and consulting Andres also has a real life, where he enjoys being with his wife Jacqueline and his three kids. He fancies skiing, BBQ and swimming in the Zurich lake.

Connecting with us:

You can find out more about Prof. Dr. Pfister via his profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andres-pfister-2716a93a and follow him on Twitter.

Please come and join us at one of our upcoming events in Zürich and introduce yourselves to the Board Members. We are looking forward to meeting you!