Axel Roepnack

Axel Roepnack is an associate clinical professor at the Gabelli School of Business, where he teaches in the area of media management and business communication.

His research interests focus on questions related to media business: how digital transformation is challenging different media sectors, how the business models of media companies are affected, and how to innovate media business models to be potentially more successful in the future.

In his professional career, Dr. Roepnack worked for more than 10 years as a management and communication consultant with international clients across Europe. His international experience and multicultural exposure is based on his education, professional experience, and academic work in Europe and the United States. His research has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, and his research partners have represented the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute for Media and Communications Management of the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland as well as Bertelsmann, Deutsche Bank, Daimler Benz, Allianz, UBS, McKinsey & Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Dr. Roepnack serves his academic field as the head of the Media Management, Economics & Entrepreneurship division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He was co-organizer of the 12th World Media Economics and Management Conference, held at Fordham in May 2016.

Dr. Roepnack received a master’s degree in business administration from the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, a master’s degree in media entrepreneurship from Fordham University, and a Ph.D. in management from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

• Ph.D.: University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, management
• Master’s: Fordham University, media entrepreneurship
• Master’s: Technical University of Berlin, Germany, business administration
• Bachelor’s: Technical University of Berlin, Germany, engineering

• Media business models
• Media industry and digital transformation
• Media strategies
• Video game industry

• Mierzejewska, B. & Roepnack, A. (June 2016). Subscription vs. Open Access business models: insights from publishing activities of scholarly societies. Presented at the annual meeting of the European Media Management Association, Porto/Portugal.
• Diaz-Espina, C., Mierzejewska, B. & Roepnack, A., (May 2016). Business Model Innovation in the News industry – a Wall Street Journal case study. Presented at the World Media Economics and Management Conference, Fordham University, New York.
• Roepnack, A. (September 2015). The business of renting redefined: business model dynamics in the media sector illustrated with the case of Netflix. Presented at the annual meeting of the International Media Management Academic Association, Moscow/Russia.
• Eppler, M., Seifried, P., & Röpnack, A. (2008). Improving Knowledge Intensive Processes through an Enterprise Knowledge Medium. In: M. Meckel & B. Schmid, (Eds.): Communication management in times of change: Publications from 10 years (pp. 371-390). Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler Verlag.
• Schopp, B., Röpnack, A., & Greunz, M. (2001). The Need for Topological Time and Location Information in Mobile E-Business Applications. Proceedings of the 9th Euromicro Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Processing (PDP 2001), 7-9 February 2001, Mantova, Italy. IEEE Computer Society, (pp. 147-157).