Mentors

Our research team has the honor to be mentored by two international, leading academics who are experts in strategic business orientations.

Professor Ayşegül Özsomer, (Ph.D. in marketing and logistics from Michigan State University) is Professor of Marketing at Koç University in Turkey and she is one of the world’s foremost thinkers of strategic marketing. Her over 20 years of experience in research, consulting and teaching in the US and Turkey has resulted in several publications in the top marketing journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Business Research among others. Her papers received several awards, such as the American Marketing Association Gerald E. Hills Best Paper Award in 2011 for the 10 year impact made to research on entrepreneurial marketing and market orientation. She is the co-author of the book “The New Emerging Market Multinationals: Four Strategies for Disrupting Markets and Building Brands” published by McGraw-Hill (2012) that has been considered one of Strategy and Business’s Best Business Books of the Year and has received international praise and endorsements from distinguished academics such as the father of modern marketing Professor Philip Kotler.

Professor Vlasis Stathakopoulos (Ph.D. University of Arizona) is Professor of Marketing at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) in Greece. He has conducted his Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Professor Jaworski who is one of the founders of the market orientation concept. The research and teaching interests of Professor Stathakopoulos include implementation issues in marketing management, marketing strategy and market driving organisations. He has worked as an academic in three countries (United States, Greece and France). He is the author of several papers in leading Journals such as Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Ethics and European Journal of Marketing among others. Being the Director of the Business Communications Lab he has extensive experience in market research projects for the industry (L’Oreal, Monsanto, DELL, HP, Genesis Pharma, to name a few). Moreover, he has participated in several international projects (“Product-Country Image” in 15 countries funded by Carleton University in Canada and “Aerospace Capability Enhancement Survey” funded by Connecticut Space Grant College Consortium and NASA, among others).