Prof.dr. Stefan Stremersch
Stefan is a global expert on marketing and innovation, bridging thought leadership and leading practice. He is a professor affiliated with some of the world’s best business schools and research universities. In addition to advising senior executives, Stefan has published award-winning research on these topics. He continues to advance knowledge in these areas by publishing, speaking, and teaching on the practical application of marketing and innovation sciences.
Stefan obtained a PhD in Economics, on the topic of commercialization of science and technology (2001; highest honors). He holds the Chair of Business Economics, at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is the founder of MTI2, which he started to go beyond where business schools stop in terms of practical business results, impact and customization.
Stefan has offered executive education and consulted in marketing and innovation at all levels of seniority and at many multinational firms (e.g., Airbus, Baloise, Baxter, Boehringer Ingelheim, Dechra, Grünenthal, GSK, Henkel, KLM, Merck, Michelin, MSD, Nokia, Rabobank, SKF, Siemens, and Total Energies, to name just a few), as well as at audiences at Cambridge, Duke University, IESE, LBS, Kellogg, MIT, among others.
Stefan was bestowed with many awards for his thought leadership. The American Marketing Association gave him three of its most important awards, including the Maynard Award for the most significant contribution to marketing thought (2003), the AMA Global Marketing Award (2006), and the Rajan Varadarajan Award for career contributions to marketing strategy (2008). The European Marketing Academy awarded him the 2020 EMAC Distinguished Scholar Award (the highest honor a European marketing scholar can receive). In the Netherlands, The Dutch Society for Sciences awarded him the Ruigrok Prize (only once in every 4 years awarded to an economist) and the Dutch Society for Sciences and Arts included him in its Young Academy (only 5 new members every year across all sciences). In Belgium, in 2015, he received the honorary International Francqui Chair at the University of Ghent, his alma mater. He received best paper awards from multiple leading scholarly journals.
In 2015, the German Industry Association gave its innovation award to Merck Innospire, one of the innovation and talent-development processes designed by Stefan in 2009, together with Merck. Stefan’s clients have also won a long series of awards for the innovation processes and innovations they developed. The Dutch market research organization MOA awarded Stefan its Insights Prize.
Stefan considers his biggest achievements as best summarized by two goosebump moments with participant testimonials at custom program clients of MTI2:
“This program helped me to fundamentally develop my personality” (25-year old science postdoc).
“This program was the single most important personal development opportunity in my 40-year old career [at >100,000 people global manufacturing company]” (64-year old field engineer).