Keynote Speakers

Dr. Justin Paul holds four Ph. D.s - from the University of Brighton, England, IIT, and two honorary Doctorates from Europe and Calcutta. He holds First Rank in the world, in Business Administration in the ScholarGPS Ranking of 3 Million scholars based on the Geometric Mean Index of Publications, Citations & H-Index in the Last 5 Years category.

A former Lecturer at the University of Washington and former Provost and Dean at NMIMS University, he is a professor at University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, USA, and an honorary Dean at SIMS, under the Catholic Diocese. He was a visiting professor at the University of Reading for 3 years. He holds Distinguished or honorary titles from Spain, Hungary, Poland, Korea, and France. He has been a visiting professor in 70+ countries and 400 universities, including MIT, University of Porto-Portugal, University of Queensland, University of Chicago, WU-Vienna, and at many Universities in Japan, England, Spain, Korea, Poland, Hungary, Germany, France, Croatia, China, Slovenia, and Lebanon.

He transformed the International Journal of Consumer Studies into a Q1 journal, with the highest Impact Factor and Cite score in the world, from a Q4 status as Chief Editor for six years. He has served as an Associate Editor with Journal of Business Research, European Management Review, European Management Journal, & Journal of Strategic Marketing.

Dr. Paul introduced the Masstige model and measure for branding, the CPP Model for internationalization, the SCOPE framework for small firms and the 7-P Framework for International Marketing. Widely recognized as the "Father of Modern Systematic Literature Reviews," he revolutionized the field by introducing the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, a rigorous framework designed to standardize the assembling, arranging, and assessing of scientific literature.

He pioneered highly influential organizing frameworks, most notably the TCCM (Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology) and ADO (Antecedents-Decisions-Outcomes) models, which have become gold standards for synthesizing complex research domains. Through his extensive publications and editorial leadership, he has transformed literature reviews from simple summaries into a sophisticated scientific methodology that identifies critical research gaps and sets the agenda for future inquiry.

Alexander D. Stajkovic is a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with extensive research in leadership, work motivation, and organizational psychology. His work, widely published in leading academic journals, has generated significant global impact and close to 17,000 citations. He focuses on evidence-based leadership and the role of leaders in addressing complex societal challenges, combining academic excellence with international teaching, research, and executive education experience.

Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke is an internationally recognised expert in economic development and international cooperation, holding a PhD in Economics. He has built a distinguished career advising governments, development agencies, and international organisations on sustainable development strategies, with over 30 years of consulting experience spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

As a co-founder of Mesopartner, he specialises in quality infrastructure, cluster and value chain development, and regional competitiveness. He facilitates systemic change processes and translates complex development challenges into actionable strategies. He currently serves as an advisor to the Single Market Academy, supporting capacity-building for organisations involved in market surveillance, standardisation, accreditation, and metrology across the six Western Balkan economies.

Ulrich is also actively engaged in applied research on economic development, consistently bridging theory and practice to generate meaningful and lasting impact.