Prof. Dr. Kaan Varnalı

Kaan Varnali, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Marketing, an author, and a consultant specialized on customer experience and behavioral modeling. His academic research mainly focuses on customer experience design, customer journey mapping, mobile marketing, and consumer behavior on digital environments. He has published more than 20 scientific articles in top-tier international academic journals such as Journal of Business Research, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Information, Communication & Society, International Journal of Information Management, Society, and International Journal of Communication. Currently, he is a faculty member at the Faculty of Communication, Istanbul Bilgi University, where he teaches graduate-level courses on consumer psychology, branding, advanced research methods, and digital product development. He had served as the Vice Dean of the Faculty for 6 consecutive years between 2010 and 2017. He is also the founding director of the Master Program in Marketing Communication, known as "Marka Okulu" in the industry, a pioneering hybrid executive education program blending professional experience with academic content. Apart from his academic work, he has worked with a number of firms ranging from major retail banks to digital start-ups, including but not limited to Garanti Bankasi, Is Bankasi, MediaCat, Pierre-Fabre, Nestle, Turkcell, Turk Telekom, Fibabanka, Sanovel, and 4play Digital Workshop in improving their customer experience and research capabilities. He has vast experience in research design and execution, corporate training, coaching, and consultancy. Combining academic knowledge with industry-based experience, he has also published four professional business books. His first ever book, entitled “Mobile Marketing: Fundamentals & Strategy” was published by one of the premier publishers of business books McGraw-Hill, New York in 2010.