Dr Ruth Orenstrat is primarily responsible for the marketing and communication activities of the WIFU Foundation. Additionally, she contributes as a co-author to practical studies. From May 2019 to May 2023, Dr Orenstrat held the position of Institute Coordinator at the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU), during which she assumed similar responsibilities. Since June 2023, she works for the WIFU Foundation on a full-time basis. Following her commercial education, she studied economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Dublin Institute of Technology. Her main areas of study were marketing and European economics. After successfully graduating as Dipl.-Oec., Dr Orenstrat worked for several years as a research assistant for the chair of marketing at the University of Hagen, Germany. She obtained a doctoral degree with a thesis focusing on ‘Brand Imitations in Food Retailing’. Most recently, she was a research fellow at the Institute for Work Science (IAW) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, working on an EU subproject.

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