Valentina KIROVA

Of Bulgarian origin, Dr Valentina Kirova initially came to France to undertake graduate studies at the University of Bordeaux, from where she obtained a Master in Economics and, in 2011, a Doctorate in Management Science, specialising in Strategic Marketing.  Before obtaining her Doctorate, she taught Communications and Project Management. Concurrently, she worked as a Marketing Research Manager in the Personal Finance department of the BNP Paribas Group.

In 2009, two years before defending her thesis, Dr Kirova joined Excelia Business School as a Lecturer in Marketing. Since 2011, she has been an Associate Professor, teaching Marketing (particularly in relation to tourism and innovation) and, every year, she supervises several end-of-studies theses. Since 2013, she has been leading the Consultancy Project for students on the Master in Management Programme, the aim of which is to get students to work on a real-life business issue so that they can provide recommendations and solutions for the development of a product or service.  Since 2019, she has been Head of the research area known as Agility, Innovation and Digitalisation (AID).

A long-standing member of the French Marketing Association, Dr Kirova’s work has been published in French and international peer-reviewed journals such as Information and Management, Revue d'économie régionale et urbaine, Journal of Business Research, and Téoros (a journal in tourism research).

Dr Kirova is a strong believer in field-based learning and is the author of numerous case studies that have been referenced at the case study centre Centrale de Cas et de Médias Pédagogiques (CCMP), and which resulted from collaborations with major groups such as Rémy Martin, EDF, Cultura and Léa Nature.