Benefit from our faculty and experts.
Professor SONJA PROKOPEC
Faculty
Professor of Marketing, Associate Dean of Faculty, Former Chair Professor (LVMH Chair)
Prof. Sonja Prokopec is a Professor of Marketing and the Associate Dean of Faculty at ESSEC Business School APAC based in Singapore. Her research explores consumer judgment and decision-making. She is also interested in understanding the factors that affect brand perceptions of luxury brands. Prof. Prokopec's research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and International Journal of Research in Marketing among others, as well as a variety of media including the Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, the Business of Fashion and Business Times Singapore.
She was the ESSEC LVMH Chair Professor of Luxury Brand Management for 12 years, from 2010 – 2022. She was named one of the Top 40 under 40 Business School Professors worldwide in 2015 (Poets&Quants ranking). Outside of teaching and research, she actively advises companies from the luxury and automotive industries, as well as start-ups regarding consumer behavior trends, consumer research and marketing, and brand management issues. She is also an advisory council member of Singapore Fashion Council and VOGUE Council.
Professor Gautam Kiyawat has deep industry experience across Consumer, Media, and Advertising sectors. His area of focus is in helping businesses maximize returns on their marketing investments. Gautam leads digital transformation consulting sprints for teams who want to build digital capability, scale revenue, or drive effectiveness of their advertising spends. Over the course of his 25-year industry career prior to joining ESSEC, Gautam has worked in leadership roles at P&G, Disney|Star, Madison Media, Philips, and Singtel, along with digital start-up and consulting experience. He has lived and worked in Singapore, the US, and India.
Fanny Ponsot has some 15 years of work experience in Marketing and Sales - first at Marc Jacobs in New York, then at L'Occitane en Provence and at Le Bon Marché Parisian department store. These positions allowed her to enhance her knowledge on selective retailing challenges, looking for innovative support and animations, and to develop a high comprehensive product sensibility and knowledge, including cosmetics, watches & fine jewelry, leather goods, shoes, wines & spirits.
She arrived in Singapore in 2017 and is a Partner of Chic, a French global creative agency dedicated to luxury and premium brands. As Managing Director of the APAC office, she enhances the client experience in stores, airports and department stores, on-line and off-line covering the diverse Asian market. Fanny Ponsot holds a Postgraduate Diploma in International Law from Paris Descartes University and an MBA from ESSEC Business School.
Dennis co-founded Genesis-Global Gems & Jewellery Group, a purveyor of exquisite gems and jewelry in the ultra-luxury market, with business interest in various markets across Asia. Having started the business over 11 years and coupled with over 20 years of experience and expertise, Dennis specializes in the sourcing of rare diamonds and precious gems directly from mines across the world, for purposes ranging from investments to adornment.
Prior to that, Dennis had 16 years of corporate working experience with various multi-national organizations across various industries, such as luxury hotels, luxury retail, FMCG, logistics & distribution, and leisure. His forte lies in the areas of learning and development, and services.
In his free time, Dennis is an avid wine and champagne collector. His real passion lies in rare gems collection.
Natalia Vaissié is a French luxury and fashion expert with a 20-year experience leading merchandising teams at LVMH and Kering.
Former Chief Merchandising Officer and member of the Executive Committee at Saint Laurent Paris, her professional career has been about defining worldwide collection strategies of ready-to-wear, leather goods and shoes to ensure their global market consistency and delivering the best sell-out results. For this, she has worked closely with Marc Jacobs, Stefano Pilati and more recently Anthony Vaccarello, collaborating with them from sketch to store, including on choice of prototypes and materials, collection structure, price positioning, industrial planning, and distribution assortment.
Ex-entrepreneur, Natalia has also founded her own brand of women’s accessories, designing, manufacturing, and distributing high-end shoes and leather goods.
She is a leadership consultant working closely with Singapore Fashion Council to help develop the local creative scene, and a lecturer at one of Asia’s leading contemporary arts and design institutions in Singapore, where she teaches Consumer Behavior, Retail strategies, Entrepreneurship, and Fashion Merchandising for their Bachelor’s program.
Prior to founding Hydra Advisory and contributing to different assignments as a senior consultant and advisor to brands and investors, Maximiliano (Max) has gained decades of international experience working for both leading corporate luxury groups as well as family-owned brands and start-ups. Among these brands that Max has worked for are the LVMH Group, Dolce&Gabbana and Ermenegildo Zegna, as well as other companies and start-ups, covering several roles in general strategy, international development, and marketing.
Max holds a Master in International Trade from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and an MBA in Luxury Brand Management from ESSEC Business School (France). He has also attended the Executive Program in Global Strategy at Harvard Business School (USA). Max is a regular visiting lecturer at ESSEC Business School in France, Politecnico di Milano, and Marangoni School in Italy - He is frequently invited to talk about International Strategy and Development in the luxury industry.