My research integrates consumer culture and market shaping. I build upon my experience as a market researcher and marketing manager to investigate how firms construct consumer insights in ways that shape marketing strategy. My research focuses on the following three streams: (1) insights “as practice.” A stream in which I investigate how firms represent consumers in ways that textbooks fail to prescribe. (2) market-shaping. An empirical phenomenon in which an actor, usually a firm, fundamentally transforms its business landscape to its advantage. (3) Disinformation. I study the social and cultural dynamics of echo chambers in social media.

As a snapshot of my academic career, I defended my dissertation at Hanken (Finland) in 2014. The dissertation resulted in three publications (ABS-3 UK ranking) – Two in Industrial Marketing Management and one in Marketing Theory. Together, they elaborate on how market research is performative, which means it profoundly influences how managers act, or in other words, how market research shapes the strategies managers consider viable.

After my Ph.D., I joined Aalto University for a one-year postdoctoral contract on Consumer Culture. After the postdoc, I joined KEDGE Business School (Bordeaux, France) with my former co-supervisor, Professor Lisa Peñaloza, and the services researcher, Professor Jonas Holmqvist. The outcomes resulted in publications in ABS-3 publications –Journal of Business Research and the European Journal of Marketing. This work conceptualizes consumer tribes and experiential luxury.

I joined the University of Auckland to participate in the market-shaping group led by Prof. Suvi Nenonen and Prof. Kaj Storbacka. My research explored how consumers shape markets. This effort resulted in seven publications in 2020. I will highlight two of them. The publication co-authored with Marian Makkar (RMIT, Australia) in the Journal of Business Research (ABS-3) explores consumer-led innovation, shaping multiple boardsport markets – e.g., kitesurfing, windsurfing, and stand-up paddling. The second collaboration with Prof. Hans Kjellberg (SSE, Sweden) in Marketing Theory (ABS-3) explores how cultural intermediaries exploit contradictions in popular culture to propose ‘feral’ segments.

I am now part of the marketing faculty at Hanken School of Economics in Finland, my alma mater where I continue with my projects on the rhetorical analysis of disinformation and echo chambers.

My experience teaching in business schools is international. I have taught at Aalto University and Hanken School of Economics (Finland), Kedge Business School (France), Tec de Monterrey (Mexico), and the University of Auckland (New Zealand). I teach several types of business courses including contemporary marketing, qualitative business research methods, consumer culture, and brand management. My core competencies in teaching include cultural approaches to consumption, contemporary branding strategy, and consumer insights.

Before my academic career, I worked as a consumer insights specialist for 5+ years in both a marketing agency and the client’s side. These managerial experiences provide me with a practical perspective that enhances my teaching. The focus is on interpreting multiple sources of consumer data to generate insights, which I define as actionable findings that can become the backbone of marketing strategy. As such, I emphasize the importance of managerial sensemaking in interpreting data, both qualitative and quantitative.

Currently, I am teaching Consumer Behavior and Strategic Branding.

Before joining academia, I was a consumer insights specialist at a market research agency. Also, I was a marketing manager at the flagship airline in Mexico, Mexicana Airlines. Both roles offered a contrasting experience of how ‘consumer insights’ work for the client and agency.

At Mexicana Airlines, my role required an understanding of how consumer insights apply strategically. By commissioning market research projects, commissioning them to agencies, and organizing their findings, I learned to interpret insights according to the firm’s capabilities. This dual experience (agency and client) informs my current research interests and teaching practice.