1st Round Jury
Dr. Julia Riedmeier
Founder & managing director CODE LUXE | Strategy Consultant | Adjunct Professor
Dr. Julia Riedmeier is the module leader of the luxury Master's concentration at Munich Business School, an adjunct professor at the International University of Monaco, and the founder and managing director of her strategy consulting firm CODE LUXE. She supports luxury brands in deciphering their luxury brand code, elevating it to the next higher level, and in connecting key stakeholders – mainly in the automotive, jewelry & watches, and yachting industry.
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Matilde Bini
Leading Teacher, Department of Business – Polimoda
Matilde Bini studied Russian in Florence and pursued a Masters in Marketing at Bocconi University in Milan. At the start of her career, she took on the role of Eastern Europe Retail and Franchising Coordinator for luxury fashion brands. She was also a Merchandising Planner for the most renowned multinational luxury groups in the fashion field. Today, Matilde is a Retail Management and Merchandising Consultant. Her educational mission is to teach students all effective principles of Retail Merchandising through a technical approach focused on working practice.
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Professor George Christodoulides, PhD
Chalhoub Group Professor of Luxury Brand Management at American University of Sharjah, UAE
Dr George Christodoulides is the Chalhoub Group Professor of Luxury Brand Management at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE. His research interests lie in the areas of luxury marketing and branding. He is Associate Editor of International Marketing Review. His research has attracted external funding from prestigious external bodies such as the ESRC and British Academy and has been published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing and Psychology & Marketing. He is an Honorary Academic Member of the Luxury Innovation Lab.
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Jukka Aminoff FRSA
Founder of Luxury Leadership Academy | Author of Modern Luxury | Distinguished Professor
Aminoff has founded several luxury brands and written several books about luxury. UHNWI Luxury Events offers luxury events. Luxury Sales Academy coaches luxury brands and individuals, and Lux Sales Lounge is a luxury brokerage.
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Giovanni Luigi Bordone
Fashion Business Associate Lecturer | PhD researcher
Giovanni Luigi Bordone is currently teaching fashion business in Istituto Marangoni and in London College of Fashion, University of the Arts in London, where he is also a PhD researcher. He spent his professional life nearly entirely in between the UK and the Asia Pacific region where he set up and launched several companies. During his 15+ in Fashion, he covered several different roles in this industry, from production to marketing, from launching start ups to corporate roles in luxury conglomerates and this makes him one of the most well rounded experts in the field. As a keynote speaker, Giovanni has addressed more than 50 companies across 20+ countries and lectured in over 10 universities. His personal concept of style and vision has been recognized and appreciated by many institutions, including BBC, Al Jazeera, Elle China and many lifestyle blogs across the globe.
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Professor Julien de Grandbois
Professor of Entrepreneurship, a leading innovator in business education – Business School Lausanne
Nationalities: Canadian and Swiss Professor Julien de Grandbois has taught ‘Entrepreneurship’ and ‘Entrepreneurial Context’ at BSL to Masters of International Business and Bachelors of Business Administration students. With extensive multi-continental backgrounds in corporate and academic cultures, Professor Julien de Grandbois launched start-ups and led business development ventures for a spectrum of industries and mandates. Professor de Grandbois also established several intrapreneurial start-ups and managed multinational firms in private banking, digital technologies and graduate education. He advised global brands in the fields of bio foods, pharma, sales & marketing, the environment, venture capital, scientific bursaries, internet applications and e-trading platforms. He designed a Master degree program for management executives. In Europe, he audited 495 universities on external relations and communication strategies. As Chairman of the Geneva Private Banking Reorganisation of Banking Operations, Julien de Grandbois served as UN panel moderator at Environmental Summits on Finance for Sustainable Technologies. As corporate advisor to a reputable global chain distributor, he acted as the intermediary on negotiations between senior management and unions. As European Education manager in corporate customer sales administration, he trained marketing specialists for the world’s largest information technology fair. With hands-on experience of the public and private sectors, Julien performed fundraising mediation projects, coached engineering start-ups, advised family businesses and global groups. He lectured and gained extensive media exposure on 5 continents in innovation & change management to ‘clean techs’. An enthusiastic 6th-year member of the First Jury at Monaco’s international business plan competition, he participated at Venture Lab promotion and coached young Swiss Start-Ups at EPFL Innovation Park. He was elected Municipal Councillor to 6 Legislatures in Geneva. He was President of the Public Works Commission, Vice-President of both Finance Commission and International Development Commission. BSL students appreciate Professor Julien de Grandbois’ passionate involvement, focus and know-how. He enjoys relating to young entrepreneurs that desire to enrich the world with their ideas. In times of innovation in technological industries and turbulence in political spheres, entrepreneurs are certainly the keys to solutions for economic, business managerial and international stabilisation endeavours.
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Dr. Marika Taishoff
Executive Education, MBA Program Director, Consultant, Speaker, Award Winning Author in Customer Experience and Luxury – International University of Monaco
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Alba Mendoza Camps
Professor of Marketing, Advertising and Branding with the Barcelona Campus and has several years of experience as a marketing specialist and data analyst.
Alba Mendoza Camps is a marketing specialist focused on new media, creativity and innovation. She holds a master’s degree in Advertising and Publicity from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a bachelor’s degree in Audiovisual Communication from Pompeu Fabra University. She has worked for several years as a Marketing Chief writing and creating content for small, medium and big companies in urban and rural areas. Furthermore, since the beginning of her career she has been involved in research being part of European projects such as Y-nex, OI2 Observatory and GRISS from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Nowadays, she is a professor in EU Business School and University of Derby.
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Bilal Hassan
Senior Lecturer Les Roches Crans-Montana, Switzerland
Bilal has considerable expertise in business development and project management, in areas such as healthcare, higher education and family businesses. He presently teaches at undergraduate and graduate levels at Les Roches Crans-Montana and is a part-time researcher in the Faculty of Brain Sciences of University College London.
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Prof. Dr. Andrea Bookhagen
Professor of Marketing and Sustainability, Fashion Design Department at HTW Berlin, Germany
Dr. Andrea Bookhagen is professor for marketing and sustainability at the fashion design department of HTW Berlin and a mentor for entrepreneurs at her university. She became a lecturer after working several years in consulting, innovation management and in global marketing. Her research focus is on sustainability and brand building in the fashion industry and beyond. She is one of the publishers of PraxisWissen – German Journal of Marketing. Andrea is a jury member since the very beginning of The Mark Challenge.
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Professor Marko Majer PhD, MBA
Business educator and marketing communications professional – Business School Lausanne
Dr. Marko Majer is a business educator and marketing communications professional with over 30 years of international experience. He has founded one of the leading marketing communications agencies in Slovenia, working for several global blue-chip clients, and has received over 80 international awards for the creative and strategic work. Upon earning his PhD at IEDC he gradually moved into academia; nowadays he shares his knowledge and experience with MBA, graduate and undergraduate students at Business School Lausanne and other distinguished Swiss management schools.
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Glyn Atwal
Associate Professor at Burgundy School of Business, France
Glyn Atwal is Associate Professor of Marketing at Burgundy School of Business (BSB), an international Graduate School of the French network of Grandes Ecoles. His teaching, research, and consultancy expertise focuses on marketing and strategy within the affluent and luxury space. He is co-author of Luxury Brands in China and India (Palgrave Macmillan) and a regualar contributor to Luxury Daily and Jing Daily. Prior to academia, Glyn worked in industry for Saatchi & Saatchi, Young & Rubicam, and Publicis.
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Professor Jan Erik Meidell
Director and full stack developer at Lexigo Software – Lecturer at HEG Geneva and Visiting Lecturer at IMD, BSL and Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies
Professor Meidell is a director and full stack developer for web and mobile phone applications (lexigo.ch). He is a lecturer at HEG Geneva and a visiting lecturer at IMD, BSL and Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies with courses in investment, finance, statistics, programming, digitalization and machine learning. Since 2018, he is a judge and mentor with Masschallenge. Previous experience includes roles as entrepreneur in two early and one mid-stage startup in professional trading software (Trading Technologies SA), fund investment (heimdalfondene.no), and the consumer packaging industry (smartseal-closures.com). He has collected a total of 15mio EUR in funding for these companies from institutional and private investors and have done – if possible – all the errors possible on the way:) The first company was sold to a trading company and the two other companies are thriving well today. Dr. Meidell has a PhD in economics from the University of Lausanne and the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). Earlier degrees include a Master in Econometrics and a Bachelor in Finance. As a part of his doctoral education, he was accepted and passed the Swiss National Bank’s Gerzensee one year PhD course in economics and econometrics for doctoral students (szgerzensee.ch). Other roles include several years as CFO (approved with Swiss Financial Authorities - FINMA) in the banking and investment industry. The first 12 years of his professional life was spent as a derivative market maker (high frequency, algorithmic trading) on several European and North American exchanges. Erik is fluent in German, French, English, Norwegian and Russian and is a supporter of sustainability initiatives. He believes in equality, resilience, integrity, and discipline. Further references can be found on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmeidell), on YouTube (https://youtu.be/SuEOesJQvW4), in this newspaper article on AI trading (https://e24.no/boers-og-finans/i/7la8m3/skal-vi-bygge-en-aksjerobot) and in this publication from the Norwegian School of Economics (https://www.nhh.no/nhh-bulletin/artikkelarkiv/eldre-saker/2016/juni/jan-erik-meidell/).
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Eleonora Cattaneo
Professor of Luxury Brand management at César Ritz Colleges Switzerland – Director of Executive Education at Swiss Education Professionals
Eleonora Cattaneo is Professor of Luxury Brand Management at César Ritz Colleges Switzerland and Director of Executive Education at Swiss Education Group. Her research interests focus on the management of iconic brands and luxury consumption. She has extensive consulting experience in a variety of industries including automotive, fashion and non-profit. Previously, she taught at SDA Bocconi and Regent's University London, and was visiting lecturer at Emlyon Business School and the Helsinki School of Economics.
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Location
There are several ways to go to Monaco from the nearest airport in Nice:
- Taking a taxi from the airport to Monaco will take about 30 minutes and cost around 65-100 EUR
- The bus 110 Menton-Nice Airport Express takes 1 hour and costs 22 EUR (one-way trip). Place d’Armes is the closest stop to the University (5 minutes by foot).
- Taking Uber may be less expensive than taking a regular taxi.
- From the airport’s Terminal 1, take the tram L2 to Grand Arénas in the direction of Port Lympia. Walk to the Nice Saint-Augustin train station, from which you can take a train to Monaco-Monte Carlo. The journey will take approximately 1-1.5 hours and will cost between 8 and 10 EUR.
In Monaco, a local bus network allows its passengers to reach almost any location in a short time during the day. An ordinary bus fare is 1.5 EUR, and 2 EUR if you buy ticket on board. All buses run until 9.30 pm, then you can take a night bus that goes every hour through the whole Monaco.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us: themark@monaco.edu