About us

Originating from academia

Consultancy

Behavia is one of Europe’s top boutique consulting companies specialized in Behavioral Public Policy and Experimental Research. Whether it is citizen experience, consumer protection, or customer behavior, our solutions currently help solve pressing challenges in more than 15 countries.

Think Tank

With decades of experience in academia and consulting, we translate Nobel Prize winning research into practice. Our methods, analyses, and forecasts build upon state-of-the-art in behavioral economics, game theory, decision theory and data analytics.

Clients

We support public authorities, non-governmental organizations and companies in their endeavors to enhance policies, programs, processes, or products. We analyze the root causes of behaviors, develop and pre-test human-centered solutions, and accompany during roll-out to measure full-scaled impact.

Experts

Our team comprises behavioral economists, social scientists and public policy experts. With our diverse backgrounds, we combine excellence in management consulting with market-leading expertise in Behavioral Public Policy. We provide our services in English, Arabic, German, Portuguese, Greek, or Italian.

Partnerships

We are skeptical towards one-size-fits-all consulting and therefore collaborate with other boutique consultancies, think tanks and universities around the globe to untap synergies and jointly deliver the best results for our clients.

Passion

We are passionate about behavioral insights and related applications and thrilled at the possibility of making a positive social impact. We are committed to fostering active citizenship, global responsibility and sustainability.

Values

We consider our team to be the most important asset. Besides sharing the same passion, we love to think, discuss and work with each other. Meaningful and flexible jobs, trust-based collaboration and an inspiring, open-minded organizational culture are important values to us and part of our founding principles.

Management team

Leading experts in behavioral economics

Dr. Manuel Schubert (Managing Director)

Dr. Manuel Schubert is Managing Director at Behavia Saudi and Managing Director (remote) at Behavia Germany. Manuel is a senior behavioral economist with 18 years of experience in management consulting, government advisory and applied research. He (co-)authored more than 40 articles addressing topics in behavioral economics, public policy, and empirical methods. Besides his work at Behavia, Manuel is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Passau, Germany. He lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Anja Reitemeyer (Managing Director)

Dr. Anja Reitemeyer is Managing Director and Partner at Behavia Germany. Anja holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior and Master degrees in Business Administration and International Management. She first came in touch with Behavioral Economics more than 19 years ago at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands, and later on established the first behavioral laboratory at Passau University, Germany. Anja’s research focusses on organizational trust, group coherence, and crisis behavior. She previously worked as a head of department at the Scansonic Group.

Prof. Dr. Julia Stauf (Managing Director)

Prof. Dr. Julia Stauf is Managing Director and Partner at Behavia Germany and Professor of Economics at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences. She is an expert in applying Game Theory and Behavioral Economics. She studied Economics in Bonn, Barcelona, Berlin and Cologne with a focus on Behavioral and Experimental Economics. Her studies and PhD thesis were supervised by two of the most influential German economists, Nobel Prize winner Reinhard Selten and Axel Ockenfels.

Mozah Al-Otaibi (Advisor to the Board)

Mozah Al-Otaibi is a Saudi innovation leader with over 15 years of experience across public, private, and non-profit sectors. She launched the first children’s entrepreneurship program in education, introduced Saudi Arabia’s first corporate carpooling initiative, pioneered unmanned vehicles in logistics, and led her team to win first place in the inaugural Public Policython. Mozah is recognized for her ability to translate complex challenges into practical solutions that inspire growth, resilience, and long-term impact.

Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff (Senior Affiliate)

Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff holds a professorship in economic theory at the University of Passau, Germany, since 2003. He devoted his dissertation to international macroeconomics and his habilitation to the economics of corruption. His research embraces topics in monetary and international macroeconomics as well as institutional and experimental economics. His books and articles were published by Cambridge University Press, Experimental Economics, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and many other journals.

Prof. Dr. Michael Grimm (Senior Affiliate)

Michael Grimm is Professor of Development Economics at the University of Passau. He is also a research professor at the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin and affiliated with the IZA and RWI research networks. His research has a focus on problems related to the labor market, education and health and evaluation of policies in these areas. He has published in the leading journals in the field of development economics such as the World Bank Economic Review, the Journal of Development Economics and Economic Development and Cultural Change. He has carried out field experiments and impact evaluations for the World Bank, the ILO and the Dutch and German Development Cooperation among others.

Fahad Alsharif, Ph.D. (Senior Affiliate)

Dr. Fahad Alsharif is Senior Research Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He worked as a consultant at various public and private agencies and was Principal Investigator of the project "Skill Development and Job Creation in Saudi Arabia" funded by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) and the Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Exeter, an MSc in Administration from Lindenwood University and a BSc in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. His research interests encompass public policies, labor migration, and the Saudi labor force.

Prof. Dr. Marcus Giamattei (Senior Affiliate)

Prof. Dr. Marcus Giamattei is a Senior Affiliate of Behavia and Professor of Economics at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Germany. His research areas are Behavioral Macroeconomics, Experimental Ethics and Cooperation and Software for Online- and Lab-in-the-Field experiments. He has published his work in scientific journals like Experimental Economics, Plos One and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. He developed classEx, a tool for interactive classroom and lab-in-the-field experiments with mobile devices and LIONESS Lab – a tool for online experiments - which are used in over 50 countries around the world. He has an international network, e.g. as external fellow at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Dr. Katharina Werner (Senior Affiliate)

Dr. Katharina Werner is Senior Affiliate at Behavia and Postdoc at the University of Cologne, Germany. Previously she was Assistant Professor at the University of Passau, Germany. Her research interests are in conflict resolution, the integration of refugees, cross-cultural experimental economics and fostering social responsibility. She is passionate about using behavioral insights to reestablish cooperation and trust in post-conflict environments and among people that were traumatized in conflicts. She holds a PhD in Behavioral Economics and previously obtained a Master in International Economics from the University of Passau, an MBA from the University of Cincinnati, and a Bachelor in International Cultural and Business Studies. Katharina loves Southeast Asia, has lived and worked in Indonesia and speaks Indonesian fluently.