Ornella Urso is Head of IDC’s Retail Insights team and leads the Customer Experience research group in Europe. Urso conducts market research, industry analysis, and proactively contributes to the definition of thought-leadership at the intersection of businesses priorities and technology innovation in B2C and D2C strategy companies. In her role, she is responsible for the delivery of research reports, custom projects and offers strategic direction and advice to both technology providers and IT and business executives of global brands.

She leads the Worldwide Retail Customer Experience Strategies program and contributes to the Worldwide Retail Commerce and Direct-to-Consumer research, with a focus on EMEA-specific retail and consumer good companies’ business models strategy roadmap, technology investments and use cases across segments and countries.

Beyond retail, her cross-industry research focus is on customer experience, customer data platforms, immersive shopping, real-time personalization, commerce platforms, loyalty and CRM. ​

She has more than 10 years’ experience in various research fields, developing qualitative and quantitative research methods. She delivers keynote speeches at international conferences and moderated seminars and panels while contributing to research dissemination.

Prior to joining IDC, Urso was involved as lead consultant and project manager in European research projects commissioned by European agencies and developed in collaboration with international teams in Europe and the US.

Urso has a PhD in political and social science from the Scuola Normale Superiore, and studied with the Technical University of Lisbon and the European University Institute.

She is based in the IDC Italy office in Milan.​