Giuseppe Stigliano

Most retail and consumer businesses now operate across physical, digital and virtual channels at once, but their org charts, P&Ls and brand playbooks still assume a single dominant channel. The result is fragmented customer experience, duplicated investment, and a leadership team unsure which version of the business it is actually running. The harder question is what to centralise, what to redesign, and what to stop doing entirely.

Giuseppe Stigliano is a marketing professor, three-time agency CEO and Philip Kotler co-author who helps consumer and retail leaders redesign their commercial model for a post-digital world.

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Why organisations work with Giuseppe Stigliano

  • Co-author with Philip Kotler of three books on the future of retail and marketing, including Redefining Retail: 10 Guiding Principles for a Post-Digital World, giving boards a tested framework rather than a point of view.
  • Sits on both sides of the table: Global CEO of Spring Studios, former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy, and Adjunct Professor at UCL, so the same person who teaches the framework has run the P&L it applies to.
  • Named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, the bench of emerging thinkers the Thinkers50 community expects to shape management practice.
  • Works directly with CMOs and retail leadership on the operating consequences of AI, omnichannel and changing consumer behaviour, not the headline trends.
  • Delivers in English, Italian and French, with keynote experience in over thirty countries across B2B and B2C audiences.

Biography highlights

  • Co-author with Philip Kotler of Retail 4.0, Onlife Fashion and Redefining Retail (Wiley, 2024); books translated into eight languages.
  • Global CEO of Spring Studios; former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy; previously led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios.
  • Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024.
  • Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship at UCL School of Management, with prior teaching at Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and POLIMI Graduate School of Management.
  • Ph.D. in Marketing and Economics; Forbes columnist and LinkedIn Top Voice.
  • TEDx talk How To Become a Marketing Superhero with over one million views.

Biography

Retail used to be a question of channel. It is now a question of operating model. Consumer businesses run physical stores, e-commerce, marketplace, social commerce and emerging virtual touchpoints in parallel, often with separate leadership, separate metrics and separate technology stacks. The customer sees one brand. The organisation behaves like several.

Redefining Retail, co-authored with Philip Kotler and published by Wiley in 2024, sets out ten principles for running the commercial model of a consumer business when the digital age is no longer the destination but the baseline. The argument behind the book is operational: sustainability, inclusion, working policy and AI are no longer brand topics, they are inputs into the value chain. The book sits alongside two earlier Kotler co-authorships, Retail 4.0 and Onlife Fashion, and together the three are translated into eight languages.

The credibility on the operating side comes from three CEO tenures at international marketing agencies. As Global CEO of Spring Studios, Stigliano leads a creative platform with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles and Milan, serving fashion, beauty, luxury, hospitality and lifestyle clients. Before that he was CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy and led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios. The academic side is held at UCL School of Management, where he is Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship.

Thinkers50 named him to its Radar Class of 2024. He writes a Forbes column, holds a LinkedIn Top Voice designation, and his TEDx talk on marketing has passed a million views. In a boardroom on retail or consumer strategy, the most useful thing he brings is the dual standing: the framework being discussed is one he wrote, and the operating problem in the room is one he has had to solve as CEO.

Key speaking topics

  • The future of retail and the post-digital consumer
  • Marketing and brand transformation
  • Customer experience and commerce across physical, digital and virtual channels
  • The business implications of AI for consumer-facing organisations
  • Post-digital leadership
  • Innovation in fashion, beauty and luxury
  • Scaling consumer businesses internationally

Ideal for

  • CMOs and Chief Customer Officers redesigning the marketing and commerce operating model
  • Retail, fashion, beauty, luxury and hospitality executive teams and boards
  • Heads of digital and e-commerce inside consumer businesses moving past pilot-stage AI
  • Innovation, transformation and strategy leads in consumer industries

Audience outcomes

  • A working vocabulary for the post-digital retail model and where it breaks current operating assumptions
  • A framework, taken from Redefining Retail, for prioritising the ten shifts that matter most
  • Sharper questions about where AI changes the customer-facing P&L and where it does not
  • A clear read on how leading consumer brands are restructuring around omnichannel commerce
  • Concrete examples drawn from his client work and CEO experience across luxury, fashion and beauty

Talks

The Future of Retail

A board-level read on how retail’s operating model is being rewritten now that digital is no longer a destination.

Key takeaways:

  • The ten guiding principles from Redefining Retail and where they bite hardest in current strategy
  • What the post-digital consumer actually demands across physical, digital and virtual channels
  • Where leadership teams typically misallocate investment between channels

The Business Implications of AI

What AI changes inside consumer businesses once the pilot phase ends and the question becomes commercial impact.

Key takeaways:

  • Where AI shifts the customer-facing P&L, and where it does not
  • The capability stack a marketing and commerce organisation needs to deploy AI at scale
  • Practical guardrails for AI in brand, content and customer experience

Post-Digital Leadership

A leadership argument for running a consumer business when physical, digital and virtual operate as one.

Key takeaways:

  • The “humbition” principle and why what got leaders here will not get them there
  • How to redesign roles and decision rights around an integrated customer journey
  • What boards should be measuring when channel-by-channel KPIs no longer hold

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Testimonials

I learnt a great deal in working with Giuseppe Stigliano. He enjoys a strong academic background, deep knowledge gained as a top manager, and comes across as a creative and impressive person. I would not hesitate to recommend him to any company CEO looking for an insightful advisor on how to improve the company’s marketing strategies.
Philip Kotler
S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
I had the pleasure of collaborating with Giuseppe on multiple occasions, both as a thought leader and a keynote speaker. Giuseppe consistently demonstrates a deep understanding of marketing, leadership, and business transformation. His insights are not only profound but also actionable, providing clear value to our strategic discussions. As a speaker, he captivates audiences with his engaging style and thought-provoking perspectives, making complex ideas accessible and inspiring actionable change. I highly recommend Giuseppe to any organization looking for an impactful advisor or a dynamic keynote speaker.
Vasiliki Petrou
CEO, Unilever Prestige
I had the pleasure of engaging with Giuseppe Stigliano as both a business advisor and keynote speaker. In both roles, he demonstrated remarkable expertise and added significant value. His insightful perspectives and engaging presentations not only inspired the audience but also provided original views that fostered constructive debate. I highly recommend Giuseppe to any executive seeking a knowledgeable advisor or an inspiring keynote speaker.
Nikos Koumettis
President of Europe, The Coca-Cola company
We decided to involve Giuseppe to challenge our company’s culture. In his speech on business innovation and digital transformation, he successfully engaged the audience. I received enthusiastic feedback from both employees and dealers.
Mr Stigliano is one of the most up-to-date professionals I know, combining his extensive knowledge and focus with engaging oratory skills. Once he starts speaking, phones are only used to film what he says, and everyone (including other speakers) remains focused until his talk ends.
Giuseppe’s speech at our yearly plenary session was absolutely inspiring. Tasked with exploring customer trends, he delivered insights rooted in his extensive experience and unique perspective. Notable for his enthusiasm, irony, and passion, he truly engaged the entire audience.
Giuseppe gave a speech on Digital Transformation at our Steering Committee meeting, and it was extremely appreciated by the Partners’ Senior Leaders. His insights were truly inspirational and sparked serious discussion among all the attendees. Giuseppe is definitely one of the most engaging keynote speakers I’ve ever met.

Books

Redefining Retail: 10 Guiding Principles for a Post-Digital World
Discover the new realities of working in the post-digital era of consumer brand and retail marketing. In Redefining Retail: 10…
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