Francesca Passeri, Ph.D., is Professor of Branding and Social Media Strategies for Italian Lifestyle and Professor of Luxury Market at Kent State University Florence Center. She earned a BA at the School of Law (1998) and an MA in Communication and Media (2000) from The University of Florence and a PhD in Information Communication Technology (2012) from the University of Florence.
Before starting her academic career, she worked and collaborated with important fashion and luxury brands.
At KSU Florence she has been working as professor since 2012 and she taught a variety of courses for the College of Communication and Information, for the Fashion Program and for the College of Hospitality Management. Since 2018 she has been coordinating the Hospitality Management internship program for the College of Education Health and Human Services. She also participated in academic activities, fieldtrips and lectures.
She collaborated as adjunct professor with the College of Political Science, University of Florence coordinating the academic activities of the international program CoMundus as well as teaching marketing and communication related courses within the same program. As adjunct professor, she also taught marketing and communication at the College of Political Science, University of Florence, and she organized courses of public speaking within the same college. She also collaborated and collaborates as adjunct professor for several American College Programs in Florence, teaching fashion and luxury related courses as well as marketing and communication courses.
As a researcher, she is interested in brands and brand communication strategies, with a focus on made in Italy and its main fields in particular Italian fashion, Italian design, Italian food, and wine. Her researches are also focused on sustainable practices in fashion and luxury, marketing strategies of Italian lifestyle related brands, as well as on the analysis of brand management in luxury and fashion.
She has published various articles focused on sustainability in fashion, fashion and culture, fashion corporate museums as tool of brand communication. In 2019, she participated at the cultural festival “L’eredità delle donne”, at Kent State University Florence within the panel “From luxury to excellence. New branding strategies of Italian Lifestyle and the role of women in the construction of the country branding made in Italy”.
In 2019, she participated to the Rome Fellows Symposium, Richmond University “From Handcraft to Luxury: Branding Italian Style”. In 2019, she organized the conference “Study Abroad: the discomfort zone. Teaching the Other: Intercultural Challenges in Study Abroad”, at ISI Florence. In 2020, she participated at the conference “Colors, fabrics, patterns – African fashion as inspiration and identity statement”, Black History Month Florence, ISI Florence.
In 2020, she coauthored the journal “Beyond” The ISI Florence and Umbra Institute Studies in International Education.
She is founder and member of FLICK (cultural association), Factory for Learning International Culture and Cross Creative Knowledge.