Quick Facts
20+ years global business experience
Led Fortune 200 global commercialization teams
Founded MASAZI (hosted NY Times and BBC Live)
Published widely in leading journals
Dr. Benét DeBerry-Spence is Professor and Head of the Department of Marketing at the University of Illinois Chicago. She has 20 years global business experience and has led global commercialization efforts for Fortune 200 companies. She has significant involvement with African businesses having in 2005 founded The MASAZI Visitor and Welcome Centre, an engaged research initiative in Ghana, West Africa that works with microbusinesses and that has hosted NY Times and BBC World Live.
Dr. DeBerry-Spence is a thought leader on marketing and consumer behavior topics that address such issues as race in the marketplace, African microentrepreneurship, and market development. Her research appears in leading journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and the Journal of Retailing. Dr. DeBerry-Spence serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
She is the recipient of numerous research and teaching honors and in 2020 became an OpEd Project Public Voices Fellow. Dr. DeBerry-Spence is a past University of Illinois Presidential Fellow and a Great Cities Institute Research Scholar. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the UIC Faculty Senate. Dr. DeBerry-Spence received a Ph.D. in Marketing from Northwestern University, an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame.
In the field
On the ground and engaged in African markets... I utilize ethnographies, mobile phone visual studies, ‘day-in-the-life’ approaches and other innovative engaged methods. As an example, this video clip witnesses me selling mobile phone cards in Accra to gain critical insights into mobile phone distribution networks.
