Doctoral Candidate
Nationality: Russia
Highest Academic Degree: MBA
Institution / University: Warwick Business School
Professional Career
Entrepreneur and a jewellery industry professional with over 15 year’s experience in international jewellery business. Founder of Maria Kovadi Fine Jewellery brand. Expanded my interests and education into new technologies and gained experience working as a creative consultant for IT and technology-related companies where I gained a deeper understanding of the importance and interrelatedness of physical and virtual presence of products.
Research Interest
Sustainability, jewellery and luxury industry, supply chain, innovation.
Research Specialty
High technology (focus on the blockchain) as means for addressing sustainability issues within the supply chains in the jewellery industry.
Statement of Motivation for a DBA
I embarked on the DBA journey with BSL with an aspiration to create a positive impact on the jewellery industry. The industry has been losing trust and struggling from reputational tarnishes due to uncovering of serious sustainability-related issues rooted in the supply chain. I have been closely observing the development of these stories feeling how important it is for the industry to induce changes.
An industry movement has started to address the transparency and traceability problems that came under the spotlight. I feel the urge to make my contribution and strongly believe that an industry producing such emotionally meaningful products as jewellery has an obligation to be responsible and trusted by its nature.
I am particularly interested in the new technologies offering promising, scalable and impactful solutions. The primary focus of my research would be on the blockchain and complementary technologies such as AI and machine learning since they have often been identified by researchers and industry leaders as viable solutions for improving supply chain transparency and traceability. I would like to take a critical look at the recent developments and analyse the emerging opportunities and their limitations.
I chose a DBA program specifically for its combination of a business practice-oriented approach along with serious academic research. By the end of the course, I aim to come up with ideas and frameworks that would be practically useful to businesses, would make another step for the industry to becoming a better place to be for all its stakeholders and potentially be applicable to other industries. My ambition is to inspire other leaders to lead responsibly and with a purpose.
