Cornelius studied business administration with a major on advertising psychology and gained his PhD at the institute for Music and Media Science at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Since 2005 he has been working for international brands as a brand sound consultant.

Since 2013 he is responsible for business development at the Hamburg based audio branding agency WESOUND and was appointed managing partner in 2017. WESOUND advises, develops and designs brands, among them Covestro, Targobank, Manner, Cornelsen, Duden, Seat, Ferrero, Aldi Suisse, EV Zug, DSM, DFL Bundesliga, SCC Events, and many more by synchronizing their acoustic representation with the company’s respective strategic objectives and sharpening the brand conception as a whole.

As a guest lecturer at the Humboldt University Berlin and the University of Popular Music and Music Business Mannheim, he introduced the study area Audio Branding to the curriculum. In 2009 Cornelius founded the Audio Branding Academy, an internationally acclaimed institution for audio brand development which holds congresses in Hamburg, New York, Oxford, Moscow and Berlin. Since 2017 the ABA hosts the International Sound Awards and since 2024 it runs the International Sound Directory. As a mediator, Cornelius considerably contributes to the growth and professionalization of the international audio branding business. Cornelius has been honored with numerous awards and also serves as a juror for major international awards. He is author and publisher of several trade publications.