Meet Madlen Sobkowiak, an Associate Professor you can count on to make sustainability a business reality
If you went back in time and told young Madlen that twenty years later she’d be a brilliant sustainability researcher, teaching accounting and directing an academic program at one of Europe’s top business schools she’d probably look at you strangely and laugh. But luckily for EDHEC, that improbability turned out to be a welcome reality. Meet Madlen Sobkowiak, EDHEC Associate Professor...
“I never set out to be an academic”, she says. “No one in my family or circle had gone that route, and it wasn’t something I was considering”. In fact, Madlen’s first interest was for business: at 14, she led a student company offering tutoring services, a fairly common setup in German high schools. More than managing the venture, it was the idea of doing something meaningful locally, of being involved in something with a measurable impact, that really captivated young Madlen.
She thus chooses to pursue a traditional business degree at the Technical University of Freiberg, where she got involved in running the local consultancy, working on projects such as old mines turned visitor mines. For her Master’s, it wasn’t quite London calling but Birmingham, where she began specializing in Accounting and Finance and encountered a course that would change her life: Social & Environmental Accounting. “For the first time, I realized I could combine two of my main interests“, she recalls. “The practicality of accounting applied within a sustainability framework posed a fascinating challenge”. This passion turned into a conversation with her professor, which evolved into a PhD opportunity.
“At the time”, she explains, “there were no standards for corporations to measure biodiversity impact. I set out to study quantification processes, a tricky topic, especially for global companies and supply chains, as biodiversity impact is locally specific. There cannot be a universal set of indicators. This made for a rather unusual research topic for an accounting thesis! I had to go beyond the traditional business framework and traveled to Canada, to the University of British Columbia, to connect with sustainability experts and scientists.”
The result was a brilliant thesis presented in 2020, “Rendering Biodiversity Calculable: A Case Study Of UK Biodiversity Accounting And The Construction Of Biodiversity Indicators”(1), and the start of an academic career dedicated to changing how businesses account for their environmental impact.
Immediately after her PhD, Madlen received a unique postdoctoral opportunity: she joined the “Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship” (SeaBOS) initiative, a science-business collaboration including currently eight scientific partners, such as the Stockholm Resilience Centre and at the time the University of Birmingham. The collaboration brings together eight of the largest global seafood production companies and a pool of scientists and experts to steer the industry toward sustainability. “My role for the first year was to develop a performance evaluation framework for the initiative”, Madlen says, “to assess whether the project was effective. I was quite excited to join SeaBOS: it’s a fascinating science-business collaboration, centered around the idea of co-designing solutions that don’t yet exist, especially in areas without established standards. As part of the science-business collaboration, SeaBOS created knowledge and risk maps to help companies better understand their supply chains and their impacts.”
After a year of postdoctoral fellowship, Madlen was offered an Assistant Professorship at the University of Birmingham, while continuing being involved in the initiative as a researcher, particularly in the area of endangered species. “I started teaching classes during my PhD”, she explains, “and developed a real passion for it because it offers a perfect balance with research and keeps things grounded.” She taught Social and Environmental Accounting, the very course that set her on this path a few years earlier, along with Management Accounting. “I particularly enjoyed engaging with students and companies, bringing practical relevance to the subject matter.” It’s no wonder she eventually made the move to EDHEC Business School.
Madlen began at EDHEC as an Associate Professor in September 2023, an adventure she happily embarked on for several reasons: “I needed a change of scenery, wanted to return to continental Europe, and EDHEC put me in the best position to do everything well”, she says, “strong sustainability research, impactful work with engagement, and teaching truly embedded with sustainability.” From the start, she created new courses to further integrate her favorite topics into accounting: Extra-Financial Reporting and Measuring Sustainability.
After only one year, she became the Program Director for the MSc in Global & Sustainable Business last September, replacing its founder Bastiaan van der Linden. “I really love that program”, she adds, “it aligns perfectly with my research interests in examining global companies and the impact of their supply chains. It’s relevant, significant, and an interesting level at which to create change. It raises questions on how to think strategically and sustainably on a large scale, and how to affect industries profoundly. I also have the opportunity to work with an incredibly diverse set of students from various cultural and professional backgrounds. It constantly pushes me to consider how my teaching can be helpful to their varied interests, how I can tailor my approach to each student, and what set of skills I want them to develop. It’s very exciting as an educator.”
Being a Program Director also enables Madlen to influence the kind of leaders EDHEC sends into the world. “We need to ensure we educate future leaders who are knowledgeable about both business and sustainability issues and can integrate the two in any context”, she elaborates. “The relevance of what we teach lies in providing a mix of technical and critical thinking skills because we are far from having all the answers. We want students who think critically and independently, who can identify their interests and find their own way to create change. It’s our guiding principle to continuously adapt our programs to achieve these outcomes.”
On the research front, Dr. Madlen has been no less busy. She continues her work around biodiversity because she “likes a challenge” and sees vast areas yet to explore, particularly regarding quantification and the relevance of standards on a local level. Her recent publications include “Shaping Nature Outcomes in Corporate Settings” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (3), “Rethinking Planetary Boundaries: Accounting for Ecological Limits” in Social and Environmental Accountability Journal (4), and “The making of imperfect indicators for biodiversity: A case study of UK biodiversity performance measurement” in Business Strategy and the Environment (5). She remains actively involved in the SeaBOS initiative and is about to engage within EDHEC’s new Center for Net Positive Business, collaborating with its director, René Rohrbeck. In this quest for numbers, one thing that remains immeasurable though, is her unflagging enthusiasm!
Key dates
Since 2024: Program Director, MsC Global & Sustainable Business, EDHEC Business School
Since 2023: Associate Professor, Control Management, EDHEC Business School
2021-2023: Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
2020-2021: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Business and Ocean Stewardship, Department of Accounting, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
2016-2020: PhD in Accounting, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
2015-2016: MSc International Accounting and Finance, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK
2013-2015: BSc Business Administration, Technical University of Freiberg, Germany
To know more about Madlen Sobkowiak
- Visit her EDHEC Business School webpage
- Go to her Google Scholar webpage
- Visit her LinkedIn profile
References
(1) Sobkowiak, Madlen (2020). Rendering biodiversity calculable: a case study of UK biodiversity accounting and the construction of biodiversity indicators. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.
(2) The SeaBOS initiative is a cross-sector collaboration within the global seafood industry. It involves eight of the world’s largest seafood companies. Together with leading scientists across disciplines and universities, they explore transformative risks and opportunities for the global seafood industry and key impact areas. https://seabos.org/
(3) Bebbington Jan, Blasiak Robert, Larrinaga Carlos, Russell Shona, Sobkowiak Madlen, Jouffray Jean-Baptiste and Österblom Henrik (2024) Shaping nature outcomes in corporate settings. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B37920220325. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0325
(4) Sobkowiak, M., Senn, J., & Vollmer, H. (2023). Rethinking Planetary Boundaries: Accounting for Ecological Limits. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 43(3), 259–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969160X.2023.2283019
(5) Madlen Sobkowiak. The making of imperfect indicators for biodiversity: A case study of UK biodiversity performance measurement (2022). Business Strategy and the Environment. Vol. 32, Issue1. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3133
