Kaj Storbacka

Kaj Storbacka is Professor, Markets and Strategy at the University of Auckland Business School's Graduate School of Management. He has previously been Professor of Sales and Account Management at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands and Professor of Marketing Strategy at Hanken School of Economics in Finland. His main research focuses on market and business model innovation, market shaping strategies and solution business transformation.

Dr Storbacka has made a career out of working on the borderline between academic and applied research within marketing and strategic management. He has 30 years of background as a strategy consultant to European and global companies – in finance, media, travel, retail, utility, manufacturing and telecommunications. Out of this time, he spent 18 years leading Vectia Ltd, a consultancy operating in Finland, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands that he founded in 1994. During these 18 years, Vectia carried out 13 multi-client applied research projects that have led to a series of highly cited academic articles and managerial books. He is since 2004 on the board of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA).

Kaj has a long background in executive education, running MBA and executive MBA courses in New Zealand, Finland, Singapore and Shanghai. He is a frequent speaker at internal seminars for major global corporations, and at leading management development institutions in Europe, Asia and the US.

Kaj has published 12 books, some of which have been translated into several languages, and over 30 academic articles. His books Designing Markets: Are you Market Driven or Market Driving (with Dr. Suvi Nenonen), and Customer Relationship Management – Creating Competitive Advantage through Win-Win Relationship Strategies (with Dr Jarmo R. Lehtinen) have been awarded as the best business books in Finland in 2010 and 1997, making Kaj the only person that has won this prize twice.

His academic research has been published in journals such as Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Theory. His work has been cited over 7500 times, according to Google Scholar.