0% · Keynote
A speaker-led presentation with no planned audience participation.
Hire a speaker · Keynotes, lectures & workshops
Hire Dr. Tilman Bauerfor your next event.
Book a keynote, lecture, or workshop on business, peace, purpose, and making a positive difference.
For conferences, companies, universities, and schools, including age-appropriate sessions for children and young people.
Choose a thought-provoking talk, an interactive lecture, or a fully hands-on workshop. The topic, examples, and level of participation are shaped around your audience.
Finnish · English · German. Online or in person, with arrangements agreed for your event.
Participant feedback
“Things I hadn’t thought about, and a really well-delivered, concise presentation.”
English translation of feedback originally written in Finnish.
Read the original Finnish wording
“Asiaa mitä en ollut ajatellut ja tosi hyvin vedetty tiivis esitys”
One participant’s feedback, not an average across events or participants.
Design your session
From keynote to
hands-on workshop.
How much should your audience take part? Choose a starting point, then fine-tune the balance. A lecture can sit anywhere between listening and doing.
50% · Interactive lecture
Explanations alternate with questions, discussion, and short activities.
100% · Hands-on workshop
Participant work fills the session. Tilman guides and facilitates throughout, with no separate lecture segment.
These are starting points, not fixed packages. Describe your preferred balance in your enquiry.
Suggested format: Interactive lecture
Approximate share of the session for audience questions, discussion, or practical work.
Start with a format, or move the slider:
This is a planning preference, not a rigid timetable or a measure of quality. At 100%, participant work fills the session and facilitation is integrated throughout. Suitable length, group size, activities, and breaks are agreed together.
Your starting point
Interactive lecture
Short explanations alternate with audience questions, discussion, and activities.
50%Participant activity
50%Speaker-led presentation
Choose a session length to see an indicative time split.
- Tilman’s role
- Introduce the ideas, ask questions, and connect audience contributions with the topic.
- What it could look like
- Short explanations alternate with discussion and a practical example chosen for your audience.
For school groups, age range, learning aims, activities, and adult supervision are agreed with the teacher or organiser. No pupil names or personal details are needed.
Your choices are included in the email draft below. Adjusting this tool does not book a session or send an enquiry.
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Copy this template into your email and fill in the remaining details there.
Featured speaking topics
Big ideas for your next event.
Three starting points for your event. Each can be a talk, lecture, or workshop, with the depth and examples adapted to the audience. School and children’s sessions are introduced below.
01 / PURPOSE
Business for Peace: What is business really for?
Rethinking purpose beyond profit alone.
Especially relevant for
Business leaders, founders, business schools, and conferences exploring the role of business in society.
Business helps shape everyday life through products, services, work, and relationships. This talk explores what changes when we understand its purpose as contributing to the conditions in which people can flourish.
Drawing on Tilman’s doctoral research, it introduces an understanding of peace that reaches beyond the absence of war, while recognising the role of profitability in sustaining a contribution.
THE AUDIENCE TAKEAWAYA clearer way to discuss what a business should contribute, whom it serves, and how purpose can guide real choices.
02 / POSITIVE IMPACT
From less harm to more good
Discover the human contribution within your core business.
Especially relevant for
Management teams, responsible-business events, industry associations, and impact-driven organisations.
Preventing harm is essential. But what good should a business actively create? And what do words such as “purpose” and “positive impact” mean beyond a mission statement?
Everyday examples, including the question “What’s your coffee cup?”, open a discussion about human needs, dignity, access, trust, and well-being. The focus is what the business makes possible, not simply what it gives away.
THE AUDIENCE TAKEAWAYPractical questions for identifying who benefits, how the contribution arises, what may be overlooked, and what evidence supports the story.
03 / BUSINESS VALUE
Can doing more good build a stronger business?
Exploring the connection between purpose, impact, and business value.
Especially relevant for
CEOs, owners, boards, strategy teams, and advisers working with purpose-led business development.
Positive societal contribution and commercial success are not automatically aligned. This talk examines the company-specific connections that may bring them together, through customer value, trust, useful innovation, and meaningful work.
It introduces the Business Peace Index as a framework for structured reflection on contribution, leadership, and development priorities. The emphasis is on credible mechanisms, not a universal formula for higher profits.
THE AUDIENCE TAKEAWAYA way to distinguish an attractive claim from a plausible business-value connection, and identify questions worth investigating in your own organisation.
More topics for your event
For a more specialised audience, these themes can become a tailored session or deepen one of the topics above.
Purpose, responsibility, and new business paradigms
- What is business, and what is the purpose of business beyond profit maximisation?
- Beyond CSR and sustainability: rethinking responsible business without abandoning the responsibility to prevent harm.
- What does it mean to be an impact-driven organisation?
- From established assumptions to new possibilities: how business paradigms shape leadership, strategy, and the role of business in society.
Peace, human dignity, and leadership
- What is peace beyond the absence of war? An introduction to weak, strong, and holistic peace.
- Peace as the substance of positive societal impact: exploring the central proposition of Business for Peace.
- Ethics, morality, and moral excellence: moving from avoiding harm towards making a positive contribution.
- Leadership for peace: human dignity, the common good, stakeholder well-being, trust, and social cohesion.
The Business Peace Index and practical management
- Assessing and strengthening a company’s positive societal contribution through the Business Peace Index.
- The eight components: purpose; long-term mindset; product and service social value; ethics, morality, and integrity; stakeholder inclusion; societal and market reach; new paradigm; and leadership.
- From philosophical research to practical management tools, leadership questions, and priorities for action.
- How core business activities can create positive impact, and how that contribution may connect to business value.
Business in times of war and reconstruction
- The role of business in preserving everyday life, resilience, livelihoods, and social stability during war.
- Business for Peace in Ukraine: questions of reconstruction, human needs, dignity, and long-term societal development.
These sessions focus on the societal role and responsibilities of business, rather than military analysis or operational security advice.
Research, education, and making a difference
- Responsible research and science for peace: how academic work can contribute to a better world.
- What does it mean to do research? Working with concepts, arguments, evidence, and uncertainty.
- Business as a force for good: lectures for students on purpose, sustainability, and how business, peace, and improving the world are connected.
- Spirituality, higher purpose, and holistic peace for audiences interested in the deeper philosophical dimensions of business.
Schools, children & young people
Big questions.
Age-appropriate sessions.
What makes a good life? How can we help other people? What does business contribute to the world? These questions can open up learning far beyond the boardroom.
Children
Peace in everyday life
Explore fairness, kindness, cooperation, and the things that help people live well. Sessions can use familiar stories, pictures, simple questions, drawing, or collaborative activities.
The language, pace, and activities are planned with the organising teacher or responsible adult.
Teenagers
Can business help change the world?
Connect products, services, work, and ethical choices with human needs and positive impact. Students can question assumptions and explore how their own ideas could contribute.
Suitable themes include responsibility, sustainability, entrepreneurship, peace, and making a difference.
Students & adult learners
Think critically. Explore purpose.
Go deeper into the purpose of business, definitions of peace, responsible research, and how philosophical ideas can inform practical decisions.
The balance between explanation, debate, and application is agreed for the group.
School sessions are arranged with teachers, school leaders, or other responsible adult organisers. We agree the age range, learning aims, language, suitable participation level, and supervision before confirming the session.
Enquiries need only the group’s age range and learning context, not children’s names or personal details. Previous school lectures are listed in selected experience.
Practical arrangements
A session shaped around your event.
Keynotes, lectures, workshops, panel contributions, and interviews. Agree the topic, audience, format, and preparation directly with Tilman.
- Languages
- Finnish, English, and German.
- Location
- Based in Helsinki. Online and in-person engagements, with travel by arrangement.
- Scope & fee
- Agreed individually according to the format, preparation, duration, and travel requirements.
Interaction percentages and time splits are indicative. A speaking engagement or workshop is separate from a full BPI expert evaluation. Any company analysis, written outputs, follow-up work, or recording and reuse arrangements are agreed explicitly.
Selected experience
Across business, research, education, and public discussion.
A selection of talks, lectures, and interviews. The context of each contribution is identified below.
2026 · Podcast interview
Conversations for a New Era
“Dr. Tilman Bauer on Business and Peace”
Conversation with Maria Dolores · February 2026
2025 · Magazine interview
Ydin: Bisnes rauhan asialla
A conversation with Arja Alho about how business can contribute to peace.
Ydin, issue 1/2025 · Published 7 March 2025 · In Finnish
Read the published excerpt (opens in a new tab)2022 · University interview
Aalto University
“If you want to foster peace, study business!”
Published for the International Day of Peace · 21 September 2022
Read the interview (opens in a new tab)2020–2023 · Invited school lectures
Business as a force for good
School lectures connecting business, peace, responsibility, and making a difference.
Including Kauniaisten lukio, Haukilahden lukio, the European School of Helsinki, Mattlidens gymnasium, Helsingin medialukio, Kuninkaantien lukio, and Joroisten lukio.
2019 · Research presentation
Corporate Responsibility Research Conference
“Business Peace: A New Paradigm for Commerce”
Tampere · 12 September 2019
2018 · Conference presentation
DASH Conference
“Business and Peace: What my PhD is about”
Helsinki · 14 October 2018
More selected talks and lectures, 2017–2024
- 2024 · “War and Peace Have Nothing to Do With Each Other”Tuesday Talks with @iamzishanofficial · Instagram Live lecture · 4 June 2024
- 2023 · “Miten maailma pelastetaan?”Kauniaisten lukio · 14 November 2023; Haukilahden lukio · 31 October 2023
- 2023 · “Business – A Force for Good: How Business, Peace, and Saving the World are Related”European School of Helsinki · 27 October 2023
- 2023 · “How to Save the World?”Mattlidens gymnasium · 26 October 2023
- 2023 · “Bisnes maailmanparantajana? Miten liiketoiminta, henkisyys ja kokonaisvaltainen rauha liittyvät toisiinsa?”Hengen ja Tiedon messut · Helsinki · 14 October 2023
- 2022 · “Business and Peace: How can business do good in the world?”Haukilahden lukio · Online lecture in Finnish · 11 January 2022
- 2021 · “Business and Peace: How can business do good in society?”Helsingin medialukio · Online lecture in Finnish · 13 October 2021
- 2021 · “Business and Peace: How can business do good in the world?”Kuninkaantien lukio · Online lecture in Finnish · 5 May 2021
- 2020 · “Business and Peace”Joroisten lukio · Online lecture in Finnish · 28 April 2020
- 2019 · “Business – A Force for Peace”Trinity Hackers Holistic Health Community Event No. 3 · Espoo · 30 October 2019
- 2019 · “Standards for Responsible Research – Reflections with a Twist for Peace”Responsible Business Research Seminar · Tampere · 13 March 2019
- 2019 · Debate on the relationship between peace and businessExponential Mindset Club · PeaceTech Seminar · Oodi Library, Helsinki · 20 January 2019 · In Finnish
- 2018 · “Life, Business, and Peace: An Introduction”Window on America · Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine · 11 October 2018
- 2017 · “Peace and Business”Green World Tour · Berlin · 13 October 2017 · In German
The perspective behind the talks
Research-informed.
Grounded in real questions.
Tilman Bauer is the founder of the Business Peace Initiative and a Doctor of Science in Economics and Business Administration from Aalto University School of Business.
His 2023 doctoral research, Business for Peace: A New Paradigm for Making a Collective Living, examines what business is, what peace means, and how the two are connected.
He developed the Business Peace Index to bring that perspective into structured reflection on a company’s contribution and development priorities. His talks connect these ideas with questions audiences can recognise in their work, studies, and everyday lives.
Hire Tilman as your speaker
Invite Tilman to your event or school.
Enquire about hiring Tilman for a keynote, lecture, or workshop. Share your event, audience, and preferred date. You do not need a finished brief.
Your session preferencesAdjust your choices
The email button opens a draft for you to review and send. The optional 30-minute planning call is for arranging the event, not the speaking engagement itself.
Helpful details to include
- Your event & audience
- Your organisation or school, audience size, and what would make the session useful. For school groups, include the age range, not pupil names.
- Timing & location
- The preferred date, time zone, and venue or online platform.
- Topic, format & language
- A keynote, lecture, workshop, panel, or interview, with your preferred participation level, length, and language.
- Budget & practical requirements
- An indicative budget, if available, and any preparation, travel, accessibility, recording, or reuse requirements.
Availability, scope, fee, and practical arrangements are agreed before an engagement is confirmed.