Habiba Allarakia has worked since the early 1990s in business and marketing research across diverse markets and categories, with 6 years in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and over a decade in the Arabian Peninsula. Habiba was the first woman to work at Procter & Gamble Saudi Arabia, where she set up the now flourishing women’s office. Her key areas of expertise are strategy & initiative development, building brands & portfolios, consumer insight and market understanding. Habiba loves reading, the sea, travelling and discovery.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Alison Bancroft was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and has lived in London and Paris. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies from Queen Mary, University of London, and has taught at the University of London, the University of the Arts, and the Sorbonne. She transitioned out of academic life in 2011 and is now a culture analyst, strategist and forecaster. Her work is multidisciplinary and covers fashion, beauty, lifestyle and design, and she is also a specialist in gender and culture. She writes for various consumer and business websites and speaks regularly at public lectures and commercial presentations and briefings. Her first book, Fashion and Psychoanalysis, was published in 2012.
London, UK
Kristian Bankov (b. 1970) is professor in semiotics, sociology of consumption and brand communication at New Bulgarian University. He is the head of the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies and director of the Sociosemiotic laboratory there. KB is the main organizer of the annual Early Fall School in Semiotics (EFSS) which takes place in Bulgaria, mostly in Sozopol, each September since 1995. He likes beer and football. For more information see Facebook.
Sofia, Bulgaria