Katja H. Brunk

Ever since my first-grade school report card declared that I “always have to get to the bottom of everything,” curiosity has been my guiding principle (and, admittedly, a bit of a nerdy personality trait).

Born and raised in East Germany and later living and working abroad for many years, I experienced firsthand what it means to move between very different worlds — from a socialist to a capitalist consumer culture. That cultural leap sparked a lasting fascination with the symbolic power of consumption and the ways marketing shapes what people desire, value, and choose — for better and for worse. After many years as a marketing practitioner and consultant in London and Brussels, I eventually left the corporate sector behind — not because marketing stopped being interesting, but because I wanted to explore it even more deeply and, most importantly, more critically. Academia turned out to be the perfect place to keep asking “why?”

Today, my research often takes a critical look at consumer culture and marketplace phenomena, and has been published in leading international marketing and consumer research journals. I currently hold the Chair of Marketing at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany — still happily trying to get to the bottom of things.