Lea Ruesch

Lea Ruesch is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management in the Operations and Business Analytics Department at IE University. Before joining IE, she worked as a Research and Teaching Fellow in Organizational Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She holds a PhD in Management from the Kühne Logistics University (KLU) and was a visiting researcher at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM).

Lea’s research sits at the intersection of Operations Management and Organizational Psychology, exploring how collaboration and bottom-up information flows can empower people and organizations to build more socially responsible and sustainable value chains. Parts of her work focus on unlocking the power of cooperative behaviors to make humanitarian operations more effective, particularly in resource-scarce and high-stakes environments.

Her work applies mixed methods, integrating qualitative insights with quantitative analyses to explore how cooperation and voice dynamics shape sustainable outcomes—using both inductive and deductive empirical approaches to identify and test strategies for change

Lea has published her research in the Production and Operations Management Journal. To complement her academic training, she has worked in the communications, coaching, and consultancy sectors at international organizations such as Kienbaum Singapore, Deutsche Bank London and Frankfurt, and ZDF, the German public-service broadcaster.

Academic Experience

• Assistant Professor; Operations and Business Analytics Department, IE University, Spain, 2022 - Present
• Research and Teaching Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, 2021 - 2022
• Doctoral Candidate and Research Assistant, Kuehne Logistics University, Germany, 2017 - 2021

Academic Background

• Ph.D. in Management, Kuehne Logistics University, Germany, 2022
• MSc in Organizational Social Psychology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, 2017
• B.A. in Communication Science and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, 2014

Corporate Experience

• Intern in HR-Consulting, HR Pepper, Berlin, Germany, 2015 - 2016
• Research Analyst in Executive Search, Kienbaum, Singapore, 2015
• Intern in Corporate Communications, Deutsche Bank, London (UK) & Frankfurt (Germany), 2013 - 2014
• Editorial Assistant, heute-Journal/ Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, Mainz (Germany), 2011 - 2013