Steffen is a political economist specializing in international money and finance. He currently serves as Co-chairperson at the Global Climate Forum (GCF), where he also leads the Macro-Financial Governance research group. He is the Principal Investigator of the Emmy Noether research project OBFA-TRANSFORM, in which he applies the monetary architecture framework to the financing of the Green Transition. Additionally, Steffen teaches political economy at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin) and is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Previously, Steffen held postdoctoral affiliations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, the City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC) at City, University of London, and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam. He holds a PhD in International Political Economy from City, University of London (2017), a Magister Artium in Political Science, Philosophy, and International Law from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München (2012), and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from LMU München (2011).

Steffen is the principal investigator of the OBFA-TRANSFORM Project and capable