Business ethics · institutional trust · applied strategy
Hanna Lincoln
I study how institutions should operate when markets involve dignity, vulnerability, care, identity, or other values that cannot be reduced to price.
My work moves between academic research and practical execution across publishing, technology, regulated services, and venture development.
Open to research, strategy, partnerships, and product-adjacent roles
ResearchBusiness ethics and governance
PracticeStrategy and market development
FocusHigh-trust, regulated industries
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Research agenda
Markets can be lawful and efficient without being ethically legitimate.
My research examines how firms and legal institutions exercise power in markets involving human bodies, health, data, identity, care, and vulnerability.
I am developing the concept of value-sensitive markets: markets in which the object or service being exchanged carries moral significance that cannot be exhausted by price, preference, or formal consent alone.
Current manuscript
Value-Sensitive Markets
Institutional legitimacy and the commercialization of donated human remains in the United States. Conceptual paper in preparation.
- Business ethics
- Consent
- Institutional legitimacy
Master's thesis · 2026
Between Dignity and Utility
A business-ethical evaluation of the human body in the U.S. funeral industry from a German perspective.
Next questions
Private power in high-stakes systems
Biotechnology, health data, AI-enabled care, and digital identity—sectors in which institutional design shapes morally significant choices.
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Selected applied work
Research is strongest when it can survive contact with operations.
A selection of product, publishing, market, and venture work. Each project reflects the same underlying interest: how trust is built, lost, and operationalized.
Funeral technologyProduct and research
Hestia
A family-facing funeral-planning concept designed around transparency, coordination, and trust in a difficult service market.
Contribution
Positioning, market and regulatory research, product architecture, family-centered experience design, and partner outreach.
Independent publishingCommerce and growth
Wildernacht
Digital commerce and publishing operations for an independent German publishing house and its authors.
Contribution
Shopify implementation, catalogue structure, author positioning, marketplace strategy, logistics, and brand development.
MediaEditorial development
Across the River Media
A small media umbrella for audio, essays, and research-led cultural storytelling.
Contribution
Editorial direction, podcast production, concept development, and long-form narrative research.
Venture developmentRegulated services
Pantheon Platforms
Venture work exploring compliance and workflow products for regulated service industries.
Contribution
Market discovery, product strategy, compliance-oriented workflows, positioning, and early commercial development.
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Writing and ideas
Long-form work for questions that do not benefit from being simplified too early.
Working paper
Value-Sensitive Markets: Institutional Legitimacy and the Commercialization of Donated Human Remains
Business ethics · conceptual manuscript · in preparation
Thesis
Between Dignity and Utility
Applied ethics · human dignity · informed consent · U.S. body donation
Research notes
Institutions, trust, and morally contested markets
Short public notes on institutional design, private power, and morally complicated forms of exchange.
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About
Different fields, one consistent question: what makes an institution worthy of trust?
My background spans history, applied ethics, business development, publishing, and technology.
I am drawn to sectors where organizations have significant power over people during vulnerable, complex, or high-stakes moments. I work across research and practice: sometimes that means building a product, sometimes reorganizing a commercial system, and sometimes writing at length about what happens when markets encounter human dignity.
- Education
- M.A. Applied Ethics & Conflict Management
B.A. History & Intercultural Business Communication, awarded 2024
- Academic interests
- Business ethics, governance, bioethics, institutional legitimacy
- Professional interests
- Strategy, partnerships, publishing, regulated industries, product
- Base
- Germany · working internationally