Luxury is often seen from the outside in. We notice the craftsmanship, the campaigns, the carefully curated brand worlds. We see the finished product. What we do not always see are the thinkers behind it.

Creating luxury takes more than a great design brought to life by expensive, rare materials or bespoke services. The industry experts shaping how luxury is understood and how it evolves behind the scenes includes academics and researchers.

Spend a few minutes on LinkedIn and you will quickly realise that the world of luxury is not just about heritage houses or headline grabbing collections. It is a space driven by ideas, from how consumers perceive value, to how brands navigate cultural shifts, to what skills and understandings the next generation of luxury professionals needs to succeed. These conversations are happening every day, and are often led by professors who sit at the intersection of research and real-world application.

What makes these voices particularly compelling is their ability to connect theory with practice, actively influencing the sector through their research, their teaching, and their collaborations with global brands.

By following, professionals with an eye on the luxury sector gain a different kind of perspective on the sector – one that goes beyond surface trends and delves into the thinking that underpins them.

We’ve collected some of the most progressive, thoughtful, and vocal academic voices whose ideas and perspectives are making sense of an industry that is constantly evolving, yet deeply rooted in meaning and perception.

Julia Pueschel – Head of Luxury Marketing track and Assistant Professor at NEOMA Business School

Julia brings a more immersive, industry-connected perspective to LinkedIn.

Her content frequently highlights collaborations with luxury houses and hands-on student experiences, offering a behind-the-scenes first-hand look at how luxury education intersects with practice. For potential applicants to such programmes, this insight can be invaluable.

With a research focus spanning consumer behaviour and counterfeit luxury consumption, she adds nuance to conversations around authenticity, culture, and desirability-making her a great follow for other established luxury experts too.

Find and Follow Julia Pueschel on LinkedIn here

Fabrizio Maria Pini – Director International Master in Luxury Management at POLIMI Graduate School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

Fabrizio’s LinkedIn stands out for its strong international outlook. He has worked as a consultant for multinational companies, with research focused on brand management and digital marketing – a combination that gives his perspective on the luxury sector both academic grounding and real commercial understanding.

As Director of an International Master in Luxury Management, his posts tend to centre on global industry trends and the evolving skillsets required in luxury careers.

He commonly offers a strategic lens on the sector, often positioning luxury as a dynamic ecosystem shaped by innovation, sustainability, and global mobility, ideal for anyone looking to understand where the industry is heading next and what is motivating global shifts and appetites.

Find and follow Fabrizio Pini on LinkedIn here

Thomaï Serdari – Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business

Originally trained as an architect, she holds a doctorate in Art History and Archaeology from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts – a foundation that gives her approach to brand strategy a cultural depth rarely found in business school faculty.

She became Academic Director of Stern’s Luxury and Retail MBA in 2019 and edits the academic journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption. She also hosts POPULUXE, a podcast exploring luxury through objects and the stories of creative professionals.

Her research argues that luxury brands are as much producers of culture as they are products of it. That has direct strategic implications for how brands approach creativity and positioning. For anyone seeking a voice that connects the history of ideas to the future of the industry, she is an essential follow.

Find and follow Thomaï Serdar on LinkedIn here

Paurav Shukla – Professor of Marketing at Southampton Business School

Paurav’s LinkedIn presence reflects the depth of someone shaping the global luxury conversation. As one of the most highly cited scholars in the luxury branding and consumer behaviour space, his perspectives carry influence, and this extends beyond academia on his socials, using his position to spotlight new research, collaborations, and emerging industry debates.

By being an active voice, Paurav is bridging academia and real world application.

What makes him particularly valuable to follow is his ability to translate complex cross cultural insights into relevant takeaways for both marketers and researchers, especially as luxury evolves across digital and global markets.

Find and follow Professor Shukla on LinkedIn here

Emanuela Prandelli – Associate Professor of Fashion and Luxury Management at SDA Bocconi School of Management

Emanuela brings an innovation focused lens to luxury and fashion. As the LVMH Associate Professor of Fashion and Luxury Management at Bocconi, Emanuela teaches innovation, marketing and digital strategy management with a luxury lens. This focus extends beyond the classroom.

Her LinkedIn activity often centres on digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and how luxury brands can adapt in fast changing environments.

Rather than focusing purely on heritage, she highlights forward thinking strategies, making her a valuable voice for anyone interested in how luxury businesses experiment, evolve, and stay competitive.

Find and follow Emanuela Prandelli on LinkedIn here

David Dubois – Associate Professor at INSEAD

David’s LinkedIn stands out for its sharp behavioural perspective on luxury consumption. Drawing on his research in social psychology and status, his posts unpack why consumers desire, signal, and engage with luxury in the first place.

He is particularly insightful when it comes to decoding subtle drivers of behaviour, making his content highly relevant for marketers looking to better understand the psychology behind premium positioning.

His research goes deeper still, exploring how luxury intersects with identity construction and social signalling – examining not just what people buy, but what those purchases say about who they are, or who they aspire to become. This work has direct implications for how brands craft narratives around exclusivity, aspiration, and belonging. For anyone working at the strategic end of luxury marketing, his academic output offers a rigorous framework for understanding the unspoken contract between a brand and its consumer.

Find and follow David Dubois on LinkedIn here

Shaun Borstrock – Professor of Luxury and Consumer Culture at Ravensbourne University London

Shaun’s voice on LinkedIn leans into creativity, and the societal dimensions of luxury. An established figure in consumer culture, his content often explores how luxury intersects with identity, media, and contemporary trends.

He also has over 20 years of experience in creative industries to pull from, blending academic insight and knowledge with real-world practice.

He is a valuable follow if you are interested in the more critical and cultural side of luxury, where branding meets storytelling and shifts in consumer values.

Find and follow Professor Borstrock on LinkedIn here

Gachoucha Kretz – Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris

Gachoucha is one of the most digitally fluent voices in luxury academia. She completed her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Jean-Noël Kapferer – arguably the field’s most influential theorist – and has built a research career at the intersection of brand management, social media, and luxury consumption that feels increasingly prescient as the industry wrestles with influence culture and digital identity. HEC Paris

Her research centres on offline and online strategic brand management applied to fashion, luxury, and beauty, with a particular focus on influence management – territory she was exploring long before it became a boardroom preoccupation. At HEC Paris, she serves as Academic Director of the Marketing Master’s degree and as Executive Director of the L’Oréal Chair for Consumer-driven Innovation and Entrepreneurship. HEC ParisHEC Paris

What makes her worth following is her ability to decode how luxury brands build meaning in digital spaces – from blogging to the metaverse – without losing sight of the fundamentals. Her content combines strategic sharpness with real industry relevance, making her one of the more distinctive academic voices currently active in the field.

Find and follow Gachoucha Kretz on LinkedIn here

Michel Gutsatz – Professor of Branding & Luxury Marketing at CEIBS and KEDGE Shanghai

Michel offers a rare dual perspective, academic insight combined with hands on leadership as a luxury brand CEO.

His LinkedIn content is often sharp and opinion led, dissecting branding strategies, heritage, and the realities of running a luxury business. His observations are rooted in first-hand and personal experience rather than sideline observations, giving his perspectives an added layer of authenticity.

Following him gives you access to practical, experience driven commentary that goes beyond theory, particularly useful for understanding how luxury principles play out in the market.

Find and follow Professor Gutsatz on LinkedIn here

Isabella Maggioni – Associate Professor of Marketing and Academic Director MSc in Luxury Management at ESCP Business School

Isabella’s LinkedIn content reflects a balance between academic insight and programme leadership. As Academic Director of an MSc in Luxury Management, she regularly shares perspectives on student development, industry engagement, and the evolving expectations of luxury careers.

Her posts are particularly useful for potential students, to employers and other stakeholders in the luxury space. By offering a grounded view of what the next generation of luxury professionals needs to succeed, she provides a much needed insight into how future talent for the sector is being shaped.

Find and follow Isabella Maggioni on LinkedIn here

Catherine da Silveira – Associate Professor of Marketing and Director of the Stream in Luxury Management at Nova School of Business and Economics

Catherine brings a rich blend of executive experience and academic rigour to her work on luxury and brand management. Before joining Nova SBE, she spent fourteen years in senior marketing roles within the L’Oréal Group across France, Portugal, and the United States, giving her a practitioner’s instinct that runs through everything she teaches and researches.

Her academic focus centres on brand identity, consumer-brand relationships, and the co-creation of brand meaning. Her “New Luxury Paradigm” framework proposes that luxury must carry two essential dimensions, substance and status. The former relates to the consumer’s desire for individual pleasure and superior experience, the latter to the capacity to make a meaningful social statement. It is a deceptively simple formulation that cuts through a great deal of industry noise.

Catherine has supervised consulting projects for Cartier International and L’Oréal luxury brands, and has served on the board of Ach Brito, the Portuguese company behind the Claus Porto heritage brand. This experience gives her Linkedin commentary on luxury strategy immense credibility.

Find and follow Catherine da Silveira on LinkedIn here

By, Megan-Rose Vince

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