Thomai Sedari

Director of Research & Adjunct Associate Professor
New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Thomaï Serdari, Ph.D. is a strategist in luxury marketing and branding. She has consulted clients in launching, growing, and successfully managing luxury brands. She is an expert on luxury and actively studies, values, and reports on companies or funds that operate and invest within the luxury goods market.

Thomaï has been teaching at New York University since 1999. She has developed a variety of courses at NYU, among which: “Cultures of Excess: Product and Fashion Design through Modernity” and “Entrepreneurship in the Business of Art.” She also developed the core courses for the Luxury Marketing specialization at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, MBA level: “The Core of Luxury: Processes, Products, and Strategies through History” and “Luxury Branding: Brand Thinking and Experience.”
Twitter: @Thomai

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Thomai.

Download The Latest Agenda

Day 1

Saturday, January 10th, 2015

11:00 Workshop 1: Lessons Learned From Luxury Online Start-Ups

Luxury start-ups are taking center stage in learning key trends as they are more nimble and daring in gaining a customer following. The executives on this panel are establishing their brands in the luxury world and can share their takeaways from challenges and successes they are experiencing. Learn as the panelists discuss:
• The brand experience they wish to impart to the consumer
• Tools utilizing for a seamless online retail experience
• Biggest challenges in establishing an eCommerce presence
• How they are collecting data to mine meaningful insights

Global Digital Solutions And Connecting Socially With The World

Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

11:25 Interactive Roundtable Discussions

These interactive sessions are your opportunity to take a deep dive into the topics that were presented earlier in the day. Each attendee has the opportunity to join two discussions during this timeframe:

1. Navigating Social Media Waters
Buffy Sash, CMO, Alice Olivia
Kate Greer, Director of Global Integrated Marketing, Alice Olivia

2. An Ecommerce Platform Does Not Guarantee A Great Customer Experience
Robert Redmond , Sr. Account Executive, CDNetworks

3. Attribution Modeling: Deciphering Which Channel Gets The Sale Credit
Debbie Johnsen, Director, Interactive Marketing, The Leading Hotels of the World

4. Borderless Digital Marketing Opens The Door Of The Global Market For Luxury/Fashion Brands…Is It That Simple?
Jean Marc Rejaud, Professor Advertising and Marketing Communications, The Fashion Institute of Technology

5. High Net Worth Individuals In BRIC-dom: Facts And Myths About Their Consumption Of Luxury
Thomaï Serdari, Director of Research & Adjunct Associate Professor, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business

6. The Global Chinese Luxury Consumer: Opportunities & Pitfalls
Avery Booker, Partner, China Luxury Advisors

15:40 High Net Worth Individuals In BRIC-dom: Facts And Myths About Their Consumption Of Luxury

Grouped together under an acronym that has been going strong for about 15 years, luxury consumers from Brazil, Russia, India, and China have been either living up to marketers’ dreams or smashing them repeatedly and persistently. Developing a strategy that is local and culture-specific has proven to be a major success factor for brands that are expanding beyond the Western world. Best practices on entering new markets are based on a nuanced approach to growth, one that looks beyond demographics and statistics. In this sessions Thomai discusses how:

• High Net Worth Individuals belong to a global elite but have local needs

• Culture takes a little longer to understand than does amassing the latest statistics on sales, ecommerce hits, and foot traffic

• According to their cultural background, customers should be approached differently

• High Net Worth Individuals can deeply affect the sales of masstige and prestige products