BRITE ’24 SPEAKERS: BERND SCHMITT

BERND SCHMITT

Robert D. Calkins Professor of Business; faculty director, Center on Global Brand Leadership
Columbia Business School

Bernd Schmitt is a world authority in customer experience, innovative strategy and global brands. He has helped numerous companies find branding and experience solutions in a rapidly changing world. 

Schmitt is the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School, where he teaches MBA, EMBA and PhD courses. In 1999, he founded the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School. The Center’s mission is to create, gather, and share insights on how to build strong brands. 

From 2011-2013, he was the Inaugural Director of the new Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI) in Singapore, focused on Asian businesses and consumers.  

Schmitt speaks to managers and executives and consults on all matters related to customer experience management, customer happiness, branding, technology and innovation, and the future of marketing and branding.

Schmitt is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Consumer Research and co-founder of TPM (Theory+Practice in Marketing). In January 2025, he will become one of the founding co-editors of the new Marketing+Technology journal. He has authored and co-authored more than 70 academic articles in marketing and psychology journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. His research focuses on consumer behavior, innovation, experiential marketing, and brand management. Schmitt's books include (among others) Happy Customers Everywhere, Big Think Strategy, Customer Experience Management, and Experiential Marketing, which have been translated into more than 20 languages.