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At IÉSEG, professors inspire, challenge, and mentor hundreds of students every year. Each month, we sit down with a faculty member to dive into their background, their vision, their teaching philosophy, and what truly drives them. This month, we met with Laurie Ann UNDERWOOD who has been teaching Marketing on the Paris campus since 2022.  

Laurie Ann, can you tell us about your background?

I am American – from Alaska, actually – but I joined IÉSEG after spending 20 years living and working in Shanghai, China. I did my MBA in China, and my doctorate in France, at Grenoble Ecole de Management. This year was my fourth year teaching at IÉSEG. I had never worked or lived in Europe before landing here four years ago, so everything was new to me: Europe, France, IÉSEG. It was a huge change!

Before teaching, I spent my whole career in the corporate world. My last position, which I held for five years, was Communication Director Asia Pacific at Air Liquide, based in Shanghai. I covered a region stretching from Japan down to New Zealand, including Southeast Asia and China. It was a great firsthand experience in cross-cultural communications and international marketing — the exact two topics I teach today at IÉSEG. 

Why did you leave the corporate world for teaching? 

I really loved my corporate experience but there came a point when I had already gained a lot of professional experience and I wanted to give back. I also missed the academic world. It’s easier to see the direct impact of your work on people in academia because you see the progress students make step by step. I love working with students.

I taught as an Adjunct Professor in eight different business schools in China before coming to France. Teaching in business schools is great because you still get to work directly with executives. Also, I stay in contact with my former colleagues. My connections with the corporate world help me to keep my content relevant for IÉSEG students.

What struck you the most when you first stepped into a French classroom? 

The classroom dynamic is different. Chinese students are extremely polite, extremely conscious of hierarchy. French students definitely have a flatter view of the professor-student relationship. As an American, it wasn’t hard for me to adapt, but at the very beginning, I was surprised by that.  

In China, I was always very nurturing and kind with my students to encourage them to speak out. When I did the same with French students, they misunderstood… they thought I meant they could just chit-chat and not pay attention in class. So, I had to revise how I framed things. Now it’s working out well!  

What courses do you teach at IÉSEG? 

I teach at all levels: bachelor’s, master’s, executive — across different programs: Grande Ecole Program, Bachelor in International Business, apprenticeship. All my courses are marketing and communications related, but it evolves from the fundamentals to the more advanced and more international.

For bachelor’s students, I teach Global Brand Management, Marketing Management and Art and Science of Marketing. For master’s students, I teach Integrated Marketing Communications and International Marketing Communications. For executives, Strategic International Marketing. I also teach in IESEG’s annual Open Innovation Marketing Hackathon for apprentiship students.

The Art and Science of Marketing course is a fundamental class for bachelor-level students. Most of them do not have any marketing background, and they may have some misperceptions about marketing. So, my goal here is to make them change their perception, to understand the positive potential of marketing!

In the Strategic International Marketing class for Executives, I give students the basics on cross-cultural communication so that they can use the models and the theories in their own careers. I explain that marketing is not only for products but also for yourself. I make the course very personal and practical. We also work with case studies that show marketing successes or failures when expanding into international market.

Can you tell us more about your teaching approach? 

One thing that runs through every class that I teach, no matter what level it is, is the importance of presentation skills. It is clear that AI has impacted many marketing jobs but presentation skills are still something very human and thus lasting. And I’ve seen in my corporate life that those who can present their ideas articulately and convincingly in a short amount of time, see their careers advance faster and further than those who can’t. So, I ask my students to present almost every day, even briefly, so they get over that fear of public speaking. I bring all of that into the classroom, including my TEDx talk experience.

I also have a golden rule: I try not to speak for more than 20 minutes without giving students an assignment to work on with the information they just learned. It could be a quick discussion, a role play, a debate or mini presentation. That way, they absorb information better, and it’s more fun. Learning should definitely be fun!

I also use my network as much as possible to enhance classes with real-world experience and challenges. For example, for IESEG’s annual Open Innovation Marketing Hackathon, I brought in the Canadian luxury outerwear brand Nobis, which I know from my corporate experience in China. Nobis also offers a student challenge to my International Marketing Communications class. I also wrote a case study on Oatly in China, which I use in class today. And in Art and Science of Marketing, we had a student challenge with Haribo. I really try to make my classes as real-world as possible thanks to my network. 

How do you support students in their learning process? 

I am a big believer in the benefits of positive psychology, so I also bring that to the classroom. I try and help my students have the right mindset for learning, making sure that every day before we jump into the content, I give them a moment to get in the mood to learn, like a yoga moment or a Tai Chi moment. Not everyone loves doing yoga or Tai Chi… but most of the students understand that this helps them clear their mind before the lesson because they always have a million different things to think about. 

The other thing I have become more and more confident about insisting upon in my classroom is: no phones and no laptops. I have found so much evidence from research — and from my time in the classroom — that having your laptop open is too much of a distraction. I’m very confident about making it a closed-laptop class. And I’ve had so many students tell me that they learn better in that environment.

I also mentor masters students on their final dissertations. I feel very proud each time one of my student defends his or her thesis. It’s a long, challenging process for every single student and there’s always a moment when I need to step in as a coach, to reassure them. Each of my thesis advisees has eventually succeeded, which feels great.