Professor Sarah Montano

Professor Sarah Montano

Business School
Professor of Retail Marketing
Deputy Head of Marketing
Deputy Director of Education (Digital)

Contact details

Email
s.e.montano@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Room G48, University House
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Sarah is Professor of Retail Marketing and is an experienced Academic with a demonstrated 22-year history of working in the higher education. Sarah is currently Deputy Director of Education (Digital) for the College of Social Sciences where she leads in the use of digital education resources and the development of distance learning programmes. She is an engaging and skilled communicator and regularly appears in the media on the subject of retail industry change. In 2023, Sarah was awarded an Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship.

Sarah Montano on retail at Christmas

Qualifications

  • PhD – University of Birmingham - 2005
  • BSc (Hons) Social Policy and Administration – University of Hull - 1995

Biography

Throughout her career Sarah has held several leadership positions including Programme Director Business Management and School Director of Transnational Education. Prior to working in academia, she worked in retail at a senior management level. Sarah’s teaching is heavily influenced by her industry practice and through this, she delivers engaging industry relevant teaching and authentic assessments via an experiential learning approach. Her work on authentic assessments has been widely published internationally and she supports others to develop their own authentic assessments. 

In 2023, Sarah was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for her performance in teaching, design, and leadership and her work on digital learning. 

Her pedagogical research interests are primarily around how industry practice can be reflected in assessments, digital education and graduate employability skill development. Sarah’s academic area of research is retail and consumer behaviour. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of retail in creating community 3rd places. She is an engaging and skilled communicator and regularly appears in the media on the subject of retail industry change. She writes for the College Blog and the BBC website and often appears on the BBC news and radio channels to talk about a range of retail subjects such as Cyber Monday.

Teaching

MSc Services and Retail Marketing

MSc International Marketing Strategy (Distance Learning) 

Research

Her pedagogical research interests are primarily around how industry practice can be reflected in assessments, digital education and graduate employability skill development. 

Sarah’s academic area of research is retail and consumer behaviour. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of retail in creating community 3rd places.

Other activities

She is an engaging and skilled communicator and regularly appears in the media on the subject of retail industry change. She writes for the College Blog and the BBC website and often appears on the BBC news and radio channels to talk about a range of retail subjects such as Cyber Monday. Please email for any retail media requests. 

Academy of Marketing Education Committee Member

Publications

Recent publications

Conference contribution

Toral, I & Montano, S 2023, An Experiential Learning Framework for Retail: Creative Authentic Skill Development. in B Jochims & J Allen (eds), Optimistic Marketing in Challenging Times: Serving Ever-Shifting Customer Needs: Proceedings of the 2022 AMS Annual Conference, May 25-27, Monterey, CA, USA. 1 edn, Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, pp. 189-199. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24687-6_76

Other

Leek, S & Montano, S 2022, 'Digital Devices: Enhancement or Distraction', HeFI Conference 2022, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 20/06/22 - 20/06/22.

Paper

Montano, S & Szmigin, I 2006, 'Cross-Cultural Organisational Perspectives on Service Delivery', Paper presented at 5th Customer Research Academy Workshop, Manchester, 1/01/06.

Montano, S & Szmigin, I 2004, 'The Role of Employees in the Service Experience', Paper presented at Services Marketing Workshop, 1/01/04.

Montano, S & Szmigin, I 2003, 'The Organization, its service promises and the customer's self-perceived service role', Paper presented at AMA ServSIG ( American Marketing Association, Services Marketing Special Interest Group) Services Research Conference 2003, Chicago, USA, 1/01/03.

Montano, S & Szmigin, I 2002, 'Organizational Culture and the service company: exploring the Synergy', Paper presented at European Marketing Academy Conference 2008, Norwich, 1/01/08.

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Dr Montano’s interests primarily lie in the area of retail change and experiential retail. She often appears on national radio to discuss trends in retail and consumer behaviour such as the impact of pub closures on local communities and seasonal shifts including the pre-Christmas rush and retail Christmas adverts.

  • Retail trends 
  • The future of the high street 
  • The relationship between hospitality/retail businesses and the local community 
  • Consumer behaviour 
  • How retail changes such as price increases impact consumers 
  • Retail advertising 
  • The benefits and challenges of digital learning for students and universities