Education

Five institutions, four continents, one direction.

An academic path that kept crossing borders on purpose: a multilingual European secondary education in Brussels, one business degree at ESSEC studied across its Singapore, Cergy and Rabat campuses with an exchange semester in Ottawa, and now a management masters in New York specialising in alternative investments.

The academic journey

01 · Jun 2026 to May 2027

IE New York College

MSc in Management · New York City, US

A graduate degree in management with a specialisation in alternative investments, taken in New York as the next step toward strategy and investment work.

Specialisation in alternative investments

02 · Sep 2021 to Jul 2025

ESSEC Business School, Asia Pacific campus

Global BBA · Singapore

The anchor of the degree: two years living and studying in Singapore, within a cohort drawn from around the world.

One and a half years based in Singapore

03 · Jan 2024 to Apr 2024

Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa

Exchange semester · Ottawa, Canada

An exchange semester in Canada combining marketing strategy with organisational study.

Digital marketing
Strategic marketing
Strategic management
Organisational behaviour

04 · Sep 2023 to Dec 2023

ESSEC Business School, Cergy Pontoise campus

Global BBA · Cergy, France

A semester at the Paris campus focused on the luxury and marketing electives that later fed directly into the dissertation.

Luxury brand management
Innovative merchandising
Influence and marketing
Sales and negotiation
Media studies and anthropology

05 · Jan 2023 to Apr 2023

ESSEC Business School, Africa campus

Global BBA · Rabat, Morocco

A semester in Rabat built around language, regional history and responsible leadership in a North African context.

Arabic
African history
The Arab Muslim world
Cultural management
Responsible leadership

06 · Graduated June 2021

European School of Brussels I

European Baccalaureate · Brussels, Belgium

A multilingual European curriculum in Brussels, finished with the European Baccalaureate.

07 · July 2020

HEC Paris

Summer school · Paris, France

A pre university summer programme at HEC Paris, the first structured step toward a business degree.

Leadership alongside study

Student Council Travel Director

ESSEC Asia Pacific · Singapore

Elected head travel representative for the student body. Organised the first year integration weekend in Indonesia, managed a SGD 50,000 budget, and helped plan events, integration and student life for more than 300 students.

SGD 50,000: budget managed for student travel and events
300+: students supported across events, integration and student life
1st: year integration weekend organised in Indonesia

Thesis · BBA Dissertation, ESSEC Global BBA

How can innovative merchandising strategies in luxury pop up stores enhance customer experience?

Advisor: Professor José Prado

Submitted May 2025

Oral defence June 2025

Where it started

The question came out of the sales floor. While interning at the LOEWE Paula's Ibiza pop up at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, I watched clients behave differently inside a temporary space than they did in the flagship, and went looking for the merchandising reasons why.

The question, broken down

01Identify and categorise the merchandising strategies luxury pop ups use to support brand positioning and operational flexibility.
02Evaluate how those strategies affect customer satisfaction and behavioural intent.
03Translate the evidence into recommendations brands can actually apply.

How it was researched

141

survey respondents on how they perceive and experience luxury pop ups

semi structured interviews with professionals at Chanel, Celine, Givenchy, Natan and Burberry

pop up visits observed across Paris, Milan, Brussels, Singapore and Dublin

activation observed daily from the inside, LOEWE Paula's Ibiza in Paris

A mixed methods design: participatory observation, qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey, triangulated so consumer claims could be tested against professional intent and against what the spaces actually did.

The work behind it

Framing
Started from what I saw on the floor at the LOEWE Paula's Ibiza activation, then read the retail literature to turn an observation into a researchable question.
Fieldwork
Visited twelve luxury pop ups across Paris, Milan, Brussels, Singapore and Dublin, observing layout, product curation, staffing and client behaviour in each.
Industry access
Secured and ran five semi structured interviews with merchandising professionals at Chanel, Celine, Givenchy, Natan and Burberry, on how activations are conceived and constrained.
Survey
Designed and fielded a questionnaire to 141 respondents on perception, comfort, memorability and purchase intent inside temporary luxury spaces.
Triangulation
Cross read the three evidence streams against each other so professional intent, observed design and consumer response could be compared rather than assumed.
Defence
Presented the method, the survey evidence and the managerial recommendations to the ESSEC jury in June 2025.

Five strategies identified

Storytelling through space
Exclusive product curation
Multisensory experiences
Artistic and immersive design
Temporary and surprising locations

What the evidence said

87%: say a pop up offers a better experience than a flagship store.
72%: say merchandising directly shapes how they perceive the brand.
64%: feel more comfortable in a pop up, where temporary design lowers the pressure of a luxury threshold.
64.5%: value product customisation as part of the experience.
61%: remember the immersive layout afterwards, which is where memorability is built.

The finding that mattered

The central finding is a misalignment. Professionals optimise for visual impact and visibility, while consumers engage most where the experience is relational: personalised service, interactive elements, a reason to stay. Design alone does not move sales. Purchase intent tracks exclusivity, storytelling and brand fit, not decoration.

“You're not just setting up a store. You're creating a moment.”

Visual Merchandiser, Givenchy

“Creative freedom is great, but it still needs to reflect the brand.”

Merchandiser, Celine

What brands should do with it

Write storytelling into the merchandising brief itself, not into the communication around it.
Treat personalisation and interaction as core inventory of the experience, since that is where engagement and purchase intent actually sit.
Adapt each activation to its local market without letting brand identity drift.
Connect the pop up back to the permanent retail ecosystem so the moment converts into a relationship.

What it concluded

The dissertation argues that luxury pop ups are not promotional accessories but experimental laboratories for emotional branding and consumer co creation: hybrid spaces where branding, storytelling and experience converge. Its managerial recommendations are to embed storytelling in the merchandising design itself, treat personalisation as a strategic necessity rather than a finishing touch, adapt each activation to local context without loosening brand identity, and build continuity between the pop up and the permanent retail ecosystem.

Positioned against symbolic retail environments (de Lassus and Freire, 2014), hedonic value creation (Klein et al., 2016), immersive retail design (Taube and Warnaby, 2017) and emotional merchandising (Roggeveen et al., 2021).

Defended orally at ESSEC in June 2025, presenting the method, the survey evidence and the recommendations to the jury.

Academic projects

Three studies that started on the shop floor.

Alongside the dissertation, three coursework projects built on firsthand observation: walking into the boutique, watching how the space behaved, then building the strategy from what was actually there.

Byredo

Group project

Elevating Gypsy Water

A brand elevation study of Byredo, the Stockholm fragrance house founded by Ben Gorham in 2006, built on a firsthand visit to one of its boutiques.

Byredo bottle and packaging concept from the project deck

What the boutique visit showed

No warm or immediate welcome on arrival, so the entry felt closer to a shop than to a Maison.
Advisors did not proactively engage or clearly articulate the brand storytelling and codes behind the scents.
The space did not feel sufficiently distinctive or emotionally immersive, with no clear journey through the scents, the founder's vision or the artistic universe.
Product presentation felt restrained: plain outer packaging, plastic lids and a minimal unboxing moment for a niche luxury price point.

What we recommended

A unified global retail experience so every flagship produces the same feeling, blurring the line between boutique, museum and atelier.
Storytelling written into the space, with fragrance bars for longer consultations and curated bookshelves adding personal texture.
A sensory journey built from neutral palettes, tactile wall finishes and hidden lighting, plus rotating local art installations.
Elevated materials and a new embossed cylindrical packaging concept that becomes a keepsake rather than a disposable layer.
A rebuilt digital experience aligned with the boutique universe.
Place based limited edition pop ups, where a local artist personalises the bottle cap on site.
Art gallery collaborations, launching scents inside exhibition spaces with vernissages and live performances.

Golden Goose

Individual project

Concept store study

A retail and merchandising study of the Golden Goose boutique at 9 Rue du 29 Juillet in the Saint Honoré quarter of Paris, visited in person.

Golden Goose Saint Honore boutique window display

What the Saint Honoré visit showed

Pedestrians were mainly well dressed in a casual chic register, roughly twenty to forty years old, and many looked ready for work.
The visit took place at opening on a Tuesday morning, which was not the busiest moment of the week.
Neighbouring stores are high end, with Louis Vuitton opposite and Theory to the right, alongside small independent shops.
The Louis Vuitton coffee stand across the street drew a steady queue of passers by.
Window displays were covered in tape and drew attention to themselves rather than to the store inside.
Inside, zoning moved from an industrial ready to wear and fragrance area, to a mirrored sneaker room, to customisation and digital display space.
The customer journey starts in the clothing area, with co creation lettering on the floor around the customisation stand.

The concept proposed

An immersive three part store: an industrial ready to wear and fragrance entry, a mirrored sneaker room carrying skate and basketball codes, then a customisation and digital area.
Rework the window displays so they show the potential of the interior rather than hiding it.
Add a small activation at street level, such as a tiny Golden Goose bakery, to draw the same passing traffic the coffee queue opposite captures.

Domaine des Lambrays

Group project

Les Retraites du Lambrays

A strategy project on a historic Burgundy estate in Morey Saint Denis, asking how to make its wines attractive to a younger luxury audience without diluting the heritage.

Cellar at Domaine des Lambrays in Burgundy

Market and target work

Mapped the current strategy: three labels, a very high end price ladder from a hundred to several thousand euros, and distribution through specialist cellars, top restaurants and export.
Found almost no digital marketing and no mass communication, leaving the estate known mainly to collectors and enthusiasts.
Built a target persona, a twenty seven year old Paris based professional who values excellence, culture and gifting, follows social trends and has money but little time.
Benchmarked competing wine and wellness destinations to position the price of a night.

The proposal

Les Retraites du Lambrays, a personalised wine and wellness retreat set in the estate, tailored through a pre stay questionnaire covering wine selection, activities and room details.
Twenty five rooms themed on grape varieties, with individual control of lighting, temperature and aromatherapy plus a digital concierge.
Tastings, wellness practices, seminars on winemaking and wine history, harvest participation and cooking workshops with local produce.
Sustainable operating principles across construction materials, energy, water, waste composting, organic and biodynamic sourcing, biodiversity and electric transport.
Premium positioning at a minimum of 350 euros a night, bookable only by contacting the estate directly given the very small number of rooms.
A mapped customer journey from discovery and attraction through booking, stay, review and loyalty.

The full record, academic and professional, is one document.

View CV Professional experience