Betty Tsakarestou

Betty Tsakarestou is an Associate Professor & Head of Advertising and Public Relations Lab at the Department of Communication, Media and Culture at Panteion University.

She is also Branding Officer & European Liaison for International Communication Division at The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), and co-initiator of Connecting Cities Project.

Her work is focusing on strategic branding and public relations, on mobile, sharing economy and collaborative consumption, on entrepreneurial Journalism, media, social media, digital and AD tech innovation, on native/branded content and digital storytelling, on entrepreneurial and community impact and engagement, on organizational/ corporate culture and decision making process, on corporate social responsibility, on social innovation ventures, on cities branding with a keen interest in cities as platforms for co-creation, on implementing user-centric/  experiential customer-centric journey design, design thinking, engaging and impact storytelling, lean and agile methodologies. 

In her capacity as the Head of Advertising and Public Relations Lab she has initiated multiple partnerships and collaborations with leaders in business, communication, advertising, public relations, publishers, media, research companies and with the emerging Athens Tech Startup Ecosystem pioneers to co-create a timely and versatile program, tapping into the intelligence of the best market practices and innovations. Connecting co-creatively academia and the market leaders, she co-designs ten vertical and connected labs on: 1. Digital and Mobile Marketing, 2. Digital Creativity: Apps/Games/ Coding, 3. Advertising and Social Media Strategy, 4. Startup Lab, 5.Market and Social Media Research, 6.Crisis Communication and Crisis Simulations, 7. Creativity-The Art of Storytelling, 8.Public Relations- The Power of Storytelling 9. Native and Branded Content Projects  10. Leadership and Emotional Intelligence.

Dr. Tsakarestou has gained international academic experience as a visiting sabbatical research professor at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism at Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism (May-November 2017), as an Erasmus Plus Grant-International Mobility Exchange professor at Zhejiang University in China (2017) and Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago, Chile (2018), teaching entrepreneurial journalism, media innovation, co-creation and design thinking.

She also authored a chapter, “Entrepreneurship Abroad, Cultural and International Perspectives and Challenges,” in “Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship” by M. Ferrier and E. Mays, Rebus Community for Open Textbooks. Dr. Tsakarestou worked as an external Lecturer at Copenhagen Business School (2017-2013), teaching crisis management, organizing crisis simulations on media and social media and reputation management in the sharing economy. As a visiting professor at the summer program of Warsaw School of Economics (2016), she taught city-branding co-creation. As part-time assistant professor at the MBA Program of University of Cyprus (2011-2007), she taught corporate social responsibility and business ethics.