David M Brown is a marketing academic and leader of the PhD programme at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. A qualified teacher with 18 years' industrial experience, David has led modules and programmes at all levels in the UK and overseas. As a visiting academic at Exeter University, England, he leads an executive MBA module, whilst elsewhere he acts as an external examiner of doctoral submissions, taught courses and programme validation events for English, Scottish, and Australian institutions.

Alexander Thompson is a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, where he teaches marketing courses and leads the MSc in international business programme. He is passionate about marketing. His research focuses on small-firm entrepreneurship, ethnographic research, and socio-cultural approaches to marketing. In addition to his academic activities, Alex works on numerous marketing research consultancy projects that are centred on helping organisations better understand the voice of their customers. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in cultural anthropology from the College of Wooster, an MBA from Central Michigan University, and a PhD from Imperial College.