Merlin Stone is Professor of Marketing and Strategy at St Mary's University, Twickenham. He has spent most of his career managing, researching, consulting and training in marketing, customer service and CRM. He is an Honorary Life Fellow of the UK's Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing, which he helped found, and was awarded their Derek Holder Lifetime Achievement Award (one of the Data IQ Talent Awards) in 2015. He has also followed a full academic career, holding senior posts and professorships at several universities He is on the editorial advisory boards of several academic journals, has a first class degree and doctorate in economics and runs a university and school tuition business focusing on management, economics and mathematics.