Antonella Caru': the Expert in Consumer Behavior Who Heads the Graduate School
Antonella Carù was not planning an academic career. "In my graduation committee there was a professor of the Department of Marketing. She liked my thesis and invited me to join the university as a member".
Raised in a family business in the food industry, Carù had enrolled in Business Administration attracted by Bocconi's reputation. Her specialist subject was Administration and Control. Now she was offered a job she had not thought of, moreover in Marketing, a research area far from hers. "I was fascinated by the challenge, so I decided to give it a try. I discovered day after day that I really liked what I was doing".
Two research areas emerged. First, service marketing, a topic she raved about after reading Service Management and Marketing by Christian Grönroos, then consumption experience and experiential marketing, developed with French colleagues inspired by the Consumer Culture Theory. An experience that turned out to be pivotal: after a period in 2002 as a visiting scholar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Montréal she was drawn to consumption experience in arts and culture even more deeply. And she did it with gusto, given her passion for contemporary art and opera.
She loves the thrill of discovery, no matter if it is cultural or geographical, and she fondly remembers the "journeys of a lifetime" in Patagonia and Mongolia. "Every working day is interesting", she says "The rewards are amazing: the steady growth of teaching and research, intellectual engagement, the relationship with students, which is a fundamental and fills most of my time". To keep up with topics that evolve at great speed is a challenge, and so is to balance teaching and research with her institutional role.
She was the Director of the Master of Science in Marketing Management, then Dean of the Undergraduate School and now Dean of the Graduate School, role which she has been reconfirmed in the team of new Rector Gianmario Verona who takes office on November 1. "They are all amazing and challenging roles. I love working together for a common goal. The potential of teamwork is impressive".