School News

Only At Stern: Professor Thomaï Serdari, International Authority on Luxury and Retail

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Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing Thomaï Serdari is a strategist in luxury marketing and branding. Her work focuses on how culture, creativity, and business strategy come together in the luxury industry. She has taught at NYU since 2004 and at Stern since 2012, with courses at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive level.

In 2019, she became Academic Director of Stern’s one-year Luxury & Retail MBA Program. Stern is the first and only US business school to offer an MBA dedicated to the luxury and retail sectors, created in response to the need for business talent among brands as they navigate modern-day challenges.

Students in Professor Serdari’s courses receive unmatched levels of access to industry leaders; both in NYC and across the world. This happens through:

  • Global experiences, such as the Luxury & Retail MBA European Immersion, a core component of the Program
  • Experiential learning courses and projects with top brands, such as the Stern Solutions MBA project in Paris
  • Regular classroom engagements with top luxury and retail executives

Drawing on her interdisciplinary background with training in architecture, art history, archaeology, and business, Professor Serdari helps students and brands alike interpret culture, the questions that define it, and the trends that will impact the future of business.

She spearheaded the annual “NYU Stern Luxury & Retail Conference,” hosted by the Luxury & Retail MBA, to convene brands around the world on emerging trends and opportunities in the sector. The inaugural industry conference, “Unlocking New Value in the Luxury Sector,” took place at NYU's Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy. The latest iteration, “American Retail: Into the Future,” took place on campus in New York City in Fall 2025.

She is the editor of the first academic interdisciplinary journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption, and the host of POPULUXE, a podcast exploring luxury through objects and stories. And before Professor Serdari became one of the leading voices on luxury and retail, she was trained as an architect at the National Technical University of Athens.

Learn more in this video and below:

Select recent media highlights featuring Professor Thomaï Serdari: