Kati
Suomi
Biography
Kati Suomi is an Associate Professor (tenure track) of Marketing at the Turku School of Economics, University of Turku (Pori Unit), where she also serves as Vice Director of the unit. Since 2020, she has held the title of Docent (Adjunct Professor) of reputation management at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University.
Teaching
Kati is an experienced educator with long teaching experience from University of Turku. She is responsible for major of marketing at Pori unit of Turku School of Economics. She teaches marketing courses and supervises Master's and doctoral theses.
Kati enjoys collaborating with companies and other organizations in the areas of teaching, research, and development projects. Feel free to get in touch regarding cooperation!
Research
Kati Suomi's current research focuses on entrepreneurial marketing, brand building, and consumer-brand relationships. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, and European Journal of Marketing.
She serves as Principal Investigator of the University of Turku sub-project within the Research Council of Finland-funded research project Playful Entrepreneurial Minds: Playfulness and Hybrid Intelligence in Higher Education and Working Life. This four-year international project (1 September 2026 to 31 August 2030) is conducted in collaboration with the University of Lapland and the University of Oulu. The project explores how playfulness, an entrepreneurial mindset, and hybrid intelligence can support learning, wellbeing, and innovation in higher education and working life.
In addition, she leads the Satakiva research project (2025–2028), which focuses on highly educated professionals and examines how to encourage graduates educated in the Satakunta region to remain there for work, as well as how to attract those who have studied elsewhere to return to the region.
International collaboration forms an important part of her research activities, and she has held visiting researcher positions at the University of Valencia and the University of Urbino.