In 2023, more than 1.5 million Europeans signed a citizens' initiative called Fur Free Europe, asking the European Commission to end fur farming and keep farmed fur products off the EU market. To inform its response, the Commission commissioned a study from Ecorys, an international research and consultancy firm. I joined the research team for this study, helping assess the social, economic, environmental, public-health and animal-welfare consequences of the options on the table.

The core task was to take five very different futures – from changing nothing, through an EU-wide ban, to strict species-specific welfare standards – and make them comparable. For each, we projected how the sector would look by 2040 and weighed the trade-offs honestly, rather than confirming what either side of the debate already believed.

Doing that credibly meant building the picture from many directions at once: a full review of EU and international law, trade and production data from sources such as Eurostat and UN Comtrade, a Commission Call for Evidence with 581 submissions, targeted surveys, in-depth interviews, expert welfare workshops, and case studies in four Member States – pulled together through structured triangulation in line with the Commission's Better Regulation standards.

• Desk research on the entire fur value chain, including fur farming, fur processing, manufacturing of fur products, retail, and trade in key European and global markets
• Market mapping: The identification and collection of company and industry data to estimate market size, sales, employment, and related indicators
• Development and review of survey questionnaires
• Scoping interviews with academics, entrepreneurs, and managers to identify consumer and market trends in fur and fur alternatives
• Targeted interviews with CEOs of major fur companies, sustainability managers of luxury fashion groups, and entrepreneurs in fur alternatives to assess the potential impact of policy changes on different stakeholders
• Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts
• In-depth case study on Italy, analyzing the impact of different policy scenarios on the Italian fur industry
• Scenario planning to forecast the impact of different policy scenarios on the fur industry and the development of fur alternatives
• Coordination with the research team through regular meetings
• Development of selected sections of the inception, interim, and final reports
• Revision of the reports over several rounds based on client feedback

The European Commission has run promotion campaigns under its “Enjoy, it’s from Europe” banner to build awareness of EU food and beverage products in markets around the world. One of these campaigns, “More than Food, Great Stories to Share,” ran across the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, with consumer tastings, trade events, and advertising designed to strengthen the image and consumption of EU agri-food products in markets such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Working through ICF Next / Mostra, I evaluated the effectiveness of the campaign.

My work focused on the analysis and reporting stage of the project. I analysed the raw survey data from 766 consumers and 280 trade professionals across the GCC, together with the post-event reports from the campaign’s tasting and B2B activations, and turned these materials into a structured evaluation. This included developing the analytical framework and diagrams, interpreting the results across the two main markets, and writing the full report, which was then refined through several rounds of client review.

The evaluation assessed the campaign’s performance against its objectives by measuring product familiarity, EU and product image, campaign and logo recognition, and purchase intent. The findings showed that the campaign had largely achieved its targets, with around 70% of respondents intending to buy more EU products. Where some survey items did not fully correspond to the activities actually implemented, I adjusted the analysis so that the results reflected the campaign’s real impact.

• Review and refinement of client survey questionnaires
• Quantitative data analysis of survey responses from 766 consumers and 280 trade professionals across GCC markets
• Campaign effectiveness assessment based on key KPIs, including product familiarity, EU and product image, campaign and logo recognition, and purchase intent
• Data visualization: Designing diagrams that present complex information clearly and make key findings easy to grasp

The Youth Guarantee is an EU initiative designed to ensure that every young person under 25 receives a quality offer of employment, education, training, or apprenticeship within a few months of leaving school or becoming unemployed. However, awareness was low: surveys showed that around 80% of young people had never heard of it. To address this, the European Commission’s DG EMPL ran a pilot information campaign in four member states: Finland, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania. Working through ICF Next / Mostra, I evaluated whether the campaign had achieved its objectives.

The evaluation combined quantitative and qualitative research. On the quantitative side, I designed the stakeholder questionnaire and programmed and fielded the online survey in several language versions, including Finnish, Latvian, Portuguese, and Romanian. The survey was sent to people and organisations involved in the campaign across all four countries.

On the qualitative side, the scope developed from routine follow-up calls into a more substantial set of in-depth phone interviews with national key stakeholders, including ministries, EU representatives, and public employment services. These interviews lasted around one hour and provided deeper insight into both the campaign’s impact and the way the pilot had been managed.

This dual focus was important because DG EMPL wanted to understand not only whether the campaign had reached young people, but also how well the Commission, agencies, and national partners had worked together. I analysed the survey and interview findings together and wrote the evaluation report, identifying what worked well, including outreach youth work, social media, role models, and success stories, as well as what worked less well, such as leaflets, mass communication channels, and the persistent difficulty of reaching disengaged NEETs („Not in Employment, Education or Training"). The report concluded with concrete recommendations for rolling out similar campaigns more widely.

• Communication Campaign Evaluation of both the campaign's impact/effectiveness and the working methodology between the agencies and the Commission
• Development of the stakeholder questionnaire together with ICF Next / Mostra, and programming of the online survey in five languages: English, Finnish, Latvian, Portuguese, and Romanian
• Survey fieldwork management: Maximised response through timed email reminders, real-time response-rate monitoring, and phone follow-ups to non-respondents
• Conducting in-depth phone interviews with national key stakeholders, including ministries, EU representatives, and public employment services
• Data analysis of quantitative and qualitative findings to identify which channels and techniques reached young people, especially hard-to-reach NEETs

The EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) is the European Commission's flagship event for clean energy and energy efficiency, bringing together policymakers, industry, and civil society across roughly a thousand events each year. How do you improve such an event attended by thousands of people across dozens of countries? You ask them carefully, and you turn their feedback into clear insights for improvement. That was my job as the external specialist responsible for the event's annual stakeholder evaluation, a recurring engagement across multiple editions, working through the agency ICF Next / Mostra.

My role covered the full survey lifecycle: refining the questionnaire with the agency and the Commission, structuring it so a single filter routed participants, organisers, and exhibitors to the right questions, then programming, testing, and fielding the online survey to the stakeholder list right after the event.

From there I analysed the responses and wrote the final evaluation report. This meant turning several thousand invitations and close to 500 completed questionnaires into a clear read on overall satisfaction, benefits, and pain points, segmented by stakeholder group, alongside concrete, prioritised recommendations for the next edition.

• Development of the online questionnaires in several versions for different stakeholders, countries, and languages, in collaboration with the agency and the European Commission
• Programming the questionnaires in specialized survey software
• Survey fieldwork management, including the distribution of questionnaire invitations to several thousand stakeholders, follow-up reminders, and regular participation status reports for the client
• Data analysis of survey responses, combining quantitative rating analysis with the interpretation of open-ended feedback
• Authoring of the final evaluation report, with results segmented by stakeholder group and year-on-year comparison

Ziegert, one of Berlin's most established luxury real-estate firms at that time, was preparing a new development aimed in part at international buyers and wanted to understand a market most German firms barely knew: wealthy Chinese property investors. They engaged me to answer two questions. First, how are international residential projects, the kind sold by firms in London, Sydney, or California, actually marketed and sold to Chinese high-net-worth individuals? Second, based on that, what concrete approach should Ziegert take to reach Chinese buyers for its Berlin properties.

Rather than rely on desk research alone, I ran the study hands-on from Shanghai. I attended a high-end luxury property fair, spoke with exhibitors and visitors, and conducted further interviews with industry experts. Working alongside a local real-estate agent and combining these conversations with targeted secondary research, I built a first-hand picture of how the market really works.

What emerged was a detailed market-entry perspective on Chinese high-net-worth individuals investing in overseas real estate. The analysis showed that these buyers were motivated not only by property ownership, but also by residency, children’s education, wealth diversification, and lifestyle aspirations. It identified key buyer segments, mapped the motives and tastes of Chinese HNWIs, analyzed how competitors approached them, and translated the findings into strategic entry options for Ziegert, each with its own trade-offs, so the firm could choose a route aligned with its goals.

• Design and execution of a hands-on market study on selling international luxury residential property to Chinese high-net-worth buyers
• Primary field research on the ground in Shanghai, including attendance at a high-end luxury property fair and direct conversations with exhibiting agents and visitors
• Secondary research on the Chinese HNWI market: size, growth, locations, and the drivers of overseas property investment
• Competitor and case analysis of how international firms market and sell residential property to Chinese buyers across multiple channels
• Market Entry Strategy Development: Development of strategic market-entry options for Ziegert

The Luxury Institute is a New York–based research, training, and consulting firm founded in 2002, working exclusively with luxury and premium brands. Led by founder and CEO Milton Pedraza, it operates the largest global network of luxury experts and has served more than 1,100 brands worldwide.

For years, the Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) has been at the core of the Institute's work, a proprietary survey that asks affluent consumers directly how they perceive leading brands. Rather than relying on industry opinion, it draws on statistically meaningful data from high-net-worth individuals themselves, scoring each brand on quality, exclusivity, social status, and emotional appeal, alongside practical measures like price premium and willingness to recommend. The Institute runs these surveys across distinct luxury categories, from jewelry and champagne to fashion and automobiles, benchmarking every brand against its peers. The result is a clear, evidence-based picture of where a brand truly stands with the consumers who matter most.

As an external freelancer, I helped the Luxury Institute transform their research into client-ready presentations. Working from raw survey data, I conducted the analysis, then designed charts and diagrams that made the patterns visible. From there I built the narrative: interpreting what the data revealed, writing the supporting text, and distilling each study into the strategic lessons that mattered to luxury brands.

• Data analysis of proprietary survey data on high-net-worth consumers across multiple luxury categories
• Development of charts and diagrams to visualize brand performance, category benchmarks, and Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) results
• Interpretation of survey findings: translating statistical results into clear, written explanations accompanying each visualization
• Derivation of key findings and strategic lessons relevant to luxury and premium brand decision-making

How do you study people who don't want to be studied? That was the central challenge behind the Millionaire Survey, Germany's first qualitative look at how the wealthy relate to luxury, which I designed and conducted as part of my PhD at TU Berlin in 2008. High-net-worth individuals are a small, guarded group, and almost no rigorous consumer research existed on them in Germany at the time.

Reaching this group is notoriously difficult, since high-net-worth individuals rarely sit down with university researchers. To solve that, the study used a multi-level sampling approach: students recruited millionaires through personal and family networks, which opened doors that cold outreach never could. The result was a deliberately heterogeneous sample of 31 individuals aged 20 to 70, ranging from old-money nobility to self-made entrepreneurs and heirs. Many were interviewed in their own homes, which added a layer of qualitative insight no questionnaire could capture.

Methodologically, the study combined open interviews with structured techniques including the Repertory Grid Method, the critical incident technique, and projective methods. This produced both rich narrative material and a workable framework: luxury products were shown to be distinguished by six core characteristics, and luxury brands were found to be perceived as personalities with distinct traits. The work became the foundation for a structured model of luxury brand identity and for segmenting luxury consumers by their psychographic characteristics.

• Design of Germany's first qualitative millionaire consumer study, including research objectives, scope, and methodology
• Recruiting hard-to-access participants: Development of a multi-level (snowball) sampling strategy to access an otherwise hard-to-reach high-net-worth segment
• In-depth interviews with millionaires across a wide range of backgrounds, from aristocracy to self-made entrepreneurs and heirs
• Application of multiple qualitative research techniques, such as the Repertory Grid Method, Critical Incident Technique, and projective methods
• Qualitative analysis of interview material to identify the core characteristics of luxury products and the motives of luxury consumption
• Consumer segmentation based on purchase motives, preferences, and values