ConPolicy » Head of Institute

Founder and Director
Dr Christian Thorun

Christian is the founder and managing director of ConPolicy. He is a recognized expert on consumer policy, a member of the Expert Network Consumer Research of the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) and he advises the European Commission on consumer affairs. Before the founding of the institute, he worked at the Federation of German Consumer Organisations in Berlin. His responsibilities included economic policy, competition, privacy and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, he was co-chair of the Information Society Working Group of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) and spokes-person of the international consumer organisations in the negotiations of an international standard on social responsibility - ISO 26000.

Christian is frequently invited as an expert in political hearings and is active in the public debate. He has contributed his expertise in events organised by the EU Commission, OECD, the German Parliament and universities.

Christian teaches at the Quadriga Hochschule and the Quadriga Academy. Furthermore, he is a member of the supervisory board of the Fairtrade certifier FLO-Cert and he is a member of the Think Tank 30 - a network of young people under the roof of the German Chapter of the Club of Rome.

Selected Lectures and Presentations

Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety, Borderless Consumer Protection!? - Effective enforcement, powerful consumers
Moderation, 7 November 2011, Berlin

Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Consumer Policy Congress - From information to regulation - How can consumer rights effectively by enforced
Presentation, 13 October 2011, Cologne

BP-Workshop "Human Rights and Business"
Moderation, 28 September 2011, Berlin

Quadriga Hochschule Berlin, Brussel: The EU legislative process and how to influence it
Workshop, 8 July 2011, Berlin

Quadriga Hochschule Berlin, Berlin: The German legislative process and how to influence it
Workshop, 7 July 2011, Berlin

Workshop, Challenges to consumer protection in E-Commerce and The importance of informed consumers  
Presentations, 30 June 2011, Qingdao (China)

International Symposium, Consumer protection in cross-border E-commerce
Presentation, 28 June 2011, Beijing

TACD Conference on Financial Services, Financial service supervision 
Moderation, 22 June 2011, Brussels

Otto Group, Consumer sovereignty and consumer trust - Consequences for ethical consumption
Presentation, 9 June 2011, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Moderation of a range of sessions in the context of the Ministry's CSR activities at the Hannover Messe
Moderation, 4-5 April 2011, Hannover

Quadriga Academy, Introduction to the EU and the legislative process
Webinar, 24 November and 01 December 2010

Federation of German Consumer Organizations, Examples of a consumer oriented financial services supervision
Presentation, 25 October 2010, Berlin

Otto Group Stakeholder Dialogue 
Input from the consumer perspective, 21 October 2010, Hamburg

Beijing Technology and Business University, Consumer Protection in E-Commerce
Presentation, 21 September 2010, Beijing

Workshop by DIW Berlin and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Consumer Policy and Consumer Policy Research - Science and Politics in Dialogue 
Moderation of a Round Table, 3 September 2010, Berlin

UNDP: Internet conference "CSR: Bridge to your consumers" 
Input for and moderation of an online-discussion, 16 to 18 November 2009

Daimler Sustainability Dialogue, Expectations on sustainable supply chain management: The consumer perspective 
Presentation, 5 November 2009, Stuttgart

Human Rights Lectures 2009 at the Free University Berlin, Amnesty International, The power of consumers 
Presentation, 24 June 2009, Berlin

OECD: Conference on Corporate Responsibility, The Role of International Standards 
Presentation, 15 June 2009, Paris

Deutsches Netzwerk Wirtschaftsethik: Annual Meeting 2009, CSR in Dialogue with Brands – How to communicate responsibility to consumers?
Panel discussion, 25 April 2009, Bonn

Consumer Citizen Network: 6th International Conference, Globalizing Consumer Citizenship 
Panel discussion, 23 March 2009, Berlin

CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion: Hearing on the reform of privacy regulation 
Expert hearing, 5 March 2009, Berlin

EU Commission: CSR Multistakeholder Forum, Transparency and CSR 
Panel discussion, 10 February 2009, Brussels

Expert forum „Privacy and business” in the Parlamentarischen Gesellschaft, Dataprotection is consumer protection 
Presentation, 17 December 2008, Berlin

Conference „Fair trade – easy done” in Dorothee-Sölle-Haus, What a social label would need to deliver 
Presentation, 28 November 2008, Hamburg

Warenkunde- und Technologietage Berlin 2008, Service quality in the retail sector: Quo vadis?
Presentation, 7 November 2008, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of the Interior: Hearing on the reform of privacy regulation 
Expert hearing, 30 October 2008, Berlin

Communication Congress 2008: Corporate Social Responsibility: Success through engagement 
Panel discussion, 9 October 2008, Berlin

Bertelsmann-Repräsentanz Berlin: Experience and Networking Day 2008, Privacy – Opportunities and risks of current developments 
Panel discussion, 03 July 2008, Berlin

CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion: Hearing on the reform of scoring 
Expert hearing, 1 July 2008, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of the Interior: Hearing on the reform of privacy regulation 
Expert hearing, 27 June 2008, Berlin

Society for International Development: What consumers expect from business regarding their social responsibility 
Presentation, 29 May 2008, Berlin

9th Privacy Congress: Roundtable Discussion, E-Mail-Marketing 
Moderation, 7 May 2008, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: Quality assurance in the context of the service directive: How do consumers recognise service quality?
Presentation, 12 December 2007, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: Purpose and future of systems providing anonymity in the Internet 
Presentation, 24 November 2007, Berlin

EU Commission: ECCG Competition Working Group, How consumer organizations should deal with consumers’ competition complaints 
Presentation, 24 April 2007, Brussels

German Parliament: Public Hearing of the Internal Affairs Committee on “Modernization of data protection legislation“ 
Expert hearing, 5 March 2007, Berlin

EU Commission: ECCG Competition Working Group, Competition problems consumers are complaining about 
Presentation, 25 January 2007, Brussels

Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation: Consumer protection and loyalty cards and RFID-Technology 
Panel discussion, 6 December 2006, Wuppertal

German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: Hearing on the 8th reform of German Cartel law 
Expert hearing, 27 November 2006, Berlin

German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: Expert hearing on competition and liberal professions 
19 September 2006, Berlin

EU Commission: RFID Consultation Workshop, Concerns about RFID and ways to address them: A consumer’s perspective 
Presentation, 16 Mai 2006, Brussels

Publications

Thorun, Christian and Wolfgang Hennes: Digital Public Affairs - Introduction, Objectives and Instruments, Association of German Press Officers (2011).

Shared authorship: E-Commerce in China and Germany – A Comparative Sino-German Analysis, C.H.Beck München/Hart Oxford/Nomos Baden-Baden, 2011.

Thorun, Christian: Sustainable Consumption: Consumer information alone is insufficient - new approaches for sustainable consumption, ConPolicy Kurzanalyse, 07.06.2011 (German version .pdf).

Thorun, Christian: What consumer policy can learn from behavioural economics, FES WISO direkt, December 2010 (.pdf German version).

Thorun, Christian: Consumer oriented financial services supervision - Lessons from British and Irish experiences, conducted for the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, ConPolicy Study, 05/25/2010 (.pdf German version).

Thorun, Christian: Financial regulatory reform - Lessons from the international debate, ConPolicy Policy Brief, 03/10/2010 (.pdf German version).

Thorun, Christian: Consumer information - Limits and requirements, ConPolicy Policy Brief, 02/17/2010 (.pdf German version).

Thorun, Christian: Consumer policy research - What behavioural economics can learn from consumer policy, ConPolicy Policy Brief, 02/08/2010 (.pdf German version).

Thorun, Christian: Von der Tendenz her berechtigt, in der Höhe nicht immer nachvollziehbar – ein Kommentar zu den Preiserhöhungen bei Lebensmitteln
ifo-Schnelldienst 19, 2007

Bracker, Joss Florian and Thorun, Christian: Über die Bedeutung der Nachfrageseite für die Effizienz von Märkten - eine Diskussion ökonomischer Theorien 
Forum Ware 35, 2007

von Braunmühl, Patrick and Thorun, Christian: Die Bedeutung der SR-Normung durch ISO - eine Bewertung aus Verbrauchersicht 
DIN-Mitteilungen 9, 2006

Thorun, Christian: RFID begeistert die Wirtschaft - Verbraucher reagieren (noch) mit Skepsis: Anforderungen an einen verbraucherfreundlichen Einsatz der RFID-Technologie im Einzelhandel
Forum Ware 34, 2006