Dr Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is a leading author, entrepreneur and sought-after speaker whose work has changed the way established businesses do business and how new businesses start. Ranked n ° 4 of the 50 best global management thinkers, Osterwalder also holds the Thinkers50 Strategy Award. He invented the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas and the Business Portfolio Map with Yves Pigneur, practical tools trusted by millions of professionals from large global companies. His books include the international bestseller Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want, Testing Business Ideas and The Invincible Company, to be published in Spring 2020.

In 1999, Osterwalder co-founded his first startup, Netfinance.ch, which focused on financial literacy. He was a journalist for the Swiss business magazine BILANZ in 2000–01 and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Lausanne in 2000–2005, when he completed his PhD research. In 2006 he founded BusinessModelDesign.com, and in 2010 he co-founded the consulting company Strategyzer, which provided Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas to over 5 million people.

At the end of 2000, Osterwalder together with a team of 470 co-authors published a model describing business models: Business Model Canvas. Business Model Canvas strives to offer a model to further develop business model ideas for data monetization.