Prof. Dr. Thomas Aichner currently serves as the Scientific Director of South Tyrol Business School. Before taking on this position, he spent three years as Assistant Professor at Alfaisal University in Riyadh, and two years as Associate Professor at John Cabot University in Rome. He holds a joint PhD in Management Engineering from the University of Padova and a Dr. rer. pol. in Business Administration with a focus on Marketing from Berlin’s ESCP Business School, with the special mention of Doctor Europaeus. His research is primarily focused on country of origin, mass customization, digital management, and artificial intelligence.
Nicola Gambetti is Compliance and Ethics Officer at the South Tyrol Business School. He has been a freelance journalist since 1994 and a lecturer at the Provincial College for Health Professions “Claudiana” in Bolzano since 2001. He is a convinced humanist and has graduated in theology and religious studies. Nicola Gambetti seeks to understand three thousand years of human history and to place the world around us in a framework centered on the human being and his relationship with the Divine and his fellow human beings.
Aaron Matscher is a consultant at the Competence Center for Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain of the South Tyrol Business School. He studied Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and founded an advertising agency specializing in social media marketing during his studies, serving significant companies from various industries. Through his work and studies, Aaron Matscher has extensively explored the integration of artificial intelligence into business processes, particularly in the areas of marketing, sales, and data analysis. His expertise encompasses the project development of AI-powered solutions for optimizing customer interactions, predicting market trends, and efficiently utilizing data for well-informed business decisions.
Lukas Pixner is a consultant at the Competence Center for Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain of the South Tyrol Business School. After graduating from the business secondary school in Merano, he gained practical experience in the business world as a financial accountant. By working with a variety of companies, he developed a deep understanding of different industries and business sectors. His time abroad allowed him to broaden his knowledge in data analysis and machine learning through hands-on experience. Additionally, he took advantage of online learning platforms to further sharpen his skills in AI, data analysis, and machine learning. Throughout his work life and training, Lukas has focused on integrating AI into business processes, particularly in marketing, sales, and data analysis. His expertise lies in developing AI-driven solutions to optimize customer interactions, forecast market trends, and leverage data for informed business decisions.
Robert Wilken studied mathematics with a minor in business administration at the Westphalian Wilhelms University (degree as Dipl.-Math. in 2003), where he subsequently worked as a research assistant (degree as Dr. rer. pol. in 2007) at the Institute for Plants and Systems Technologies (Director: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Klaus Backhaus). Subsequently, he followed a call to the assistant professorship for International Marketing at the former ESCP-EAP. Since 2012, he has been Professor of International Marketing and, since 2017, also Vice-Rector for Research and Teaching at what is now ESCP Business School Berlin. At the same institution, he is also the deputy director of the PhD program in International Business Administration . His research and teaching interests are in the areas of pricing, sustainable consumption, data-driven marketing, and cross-cultural business negotiations. His research has been published in the British Journal of Management, International Business Review, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Retailing, Management International Review, Marketing Letters, and Psychology & Marketing, among others. His research has won awards at various conferences (including Academy of Marketing Science and Association for Consumer Research). His reviewing activities for academic journals have received several awards (including Group Decision and Negotiation and Journal of Retailing). In 2017, he was one of the hosts of the annual conference of the International Association of Conflict Management (IACM), in Berlin.
Dr. Abdel Monim Shaltoni has an extensive experience in the fields of marketing and e-business. He holds a PhD in e-marketing from the University of Birmingham and is currently a full-time Associate Professor at Alfaisal University in Riyadh/KSA, where he teaches at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Dr. Shaltoni’s research interests focus on the organizational adoption of e-marketing and marketing practices in developing countries. He secured research funds and published in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Before starting his academic career, Dr. Shaltoni was a marketing and business development manager for several software houses. He also conducted consultancy and training projects in several areas of marketing and e-business. Dr. Shaltoni is married and has three kids. He enjoys having a diverse cultural background. Born in Germany, and lived mainly in Jordan, the UK, and KSA.
Soledad Arcolano Veiras is Senior Planning and Forecasting Manager in The Coca-Cola Company. She is an experience professional with a proven track record in strategic planning and performance management. She brings a strong strategic mindset with deep analytical skills to tackle complex business problems by connecting the dots and seeing the big picture. Her experience includes working as financial and project controller in the railway industry in the UK and Germany, including as head of FP&A in the DACH region. Soledad studied Business Administration in Santiago de Compostela, Spain and has a Master of Science in Management from ESCP Business School in Berlin, Germany.
Anna Montali is a researcher in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases and Hepatology at the University Hospital of Parma. Previously, she worked at the Jacqui Wood Cancer Center at the Faculty of Medicine and at the Department of Cellular Medicine at the University of Dundee in Scotland. Her research interests include molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, cancer research and microbiology. Anna Montali holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Parma and a Master’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Biotechnology from the University of Trento.
Klaus Thaler is currently CEO of K-Tipp Rechtsschutz, the legal protection insurance company of K-Tipp Verlag, which was founded in 2019. K-Tipp Verlag publishes various Swiss consumer magazines that reach a readership of over 2 million people. Klaus has extensive experience and knowledge in the strategic and operational management of startups. In his career, he also led the first FinTech spin-off ELVIA e-invest of Allianz Suisse as CEO. Prior to that, he held various positions at companies in the insurance industry. Klaus Thaler holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Free University of Bolzano and a Master’s degree in Banking & Finance from the University of Zurich.
After he graduated in economics and management at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Jan Buckard started his career in sales and worked for more than 8 years as a head of sales in Germany. After working for leading companies in his field, he founded his first company, together with his wife, an Online Marketing Agency „Agentur Emilian“ based in Berlin. In 2021 he moved to Dubai and started a Dubai based Marketing Agency „Emma Marketing“ that serves clients in Europe, in the GCC and overseas as well as the company „Dubai Calling“ that helps people to start a company in Dubai or to get a visa for the Emirates. Despite from his expertise in leadership and mindset, he is specialised in SEO and performance marketing.
Paolo Coletti started his research activity with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics at the University of Trento, specifically on partial differential equations of turbulence models in hydraulics, moving to computational linguistics working on language models for automatic speech recognition and on natural language understanding. He has been teaching computer science and data analysis since 2005, carrying on research on computational finance, focusing in particular on data collection and network representations of Italian public companies. He is also involved in projects related to mass customization and cryptocurrency technology.
Dr. Eleonora Carrozzo is a post-doc researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute (LBI) for Digital Health and Prevention in Salzburg. As a statistician, her main activities include supporting data analysis of an interdisciplinary team that investigates the use of technology to sustain a lifelong healthy lifestyle – both in prevention and rehabilitation. She is also involved in methodological research studying alternative statistical approaches to analyze data in the digital health framework and personalized medicine with the cooperation of the Paracelsus Medical Private University Salzburg and Paris Lodron University Salzburg.
Patrick Harders is Logistics Manager at Würth Italy in Capena near Rome. His responsibilities include process optimization (Lean & Green), increasing productivity, reverse logistics and implementing value-added services. Before taking the current position, he was sales manager for potential customers in Italy and regional sales manager, both at Würth Italy. He holds a degree in Logistics and Production Engineering from the Free University of Bolzano.