Founder of CircularAdwiser, a strategic creativity hub, Guenda Cermel’s educational and professional path is a puzzle of diverse experiences. After attending classical high school in Venice, driven by a deep passion for art, she enrolled in what was then a cutting-edge university course: Cultural Heritage Conservation.
Parallel to her studies, she chose to gain practical experience in the sector immediately and, at just 19 years old, lived in New York for six months working in a contemporary art gallery. After graduating, she initially considered an academic career oriented toward art criticism, a field aligned with her interest in writing and research.
However, her professional path took a different direction when she joined Stefanel. She entered the industry without technical design training but with a solid aesthetic sense and a personal stylistic vision, expressed through highly artistic and non-conventional moodboards. This experience proved decisive: she quickly developed skills in creating sketches and fashion plates, while simultaneously realizing that the stylistic dimension alone did not fully satisfy her professional aptitude.
She then shifted toward product and brand management, a field she found more congenial as it involves organization and vision—dimensions close to her concept of mental agility and abstract creativity. Over twenty-five years, she has held roles of increasing responsibility, always focused on the strategic development of the brand in its various facets: from the most creative to the most commercial. She has worked in highly structured corporate contexts—including Stefanel, Coin, OVS, and HS24—collaborating with large, interconnected teams and gaining significant international experience.
During the pandemic, she undertook a Master’s degree in Philosophy, approaching systemic thinking, and subsequently obtained a scholarship for a Master’s degree in Integral Ecology, also within the Faculty of Philosophy. This transition marked a turning point: she deeply reformulated her understanding of the fashion industry, seeking to grasp its environmental impacts and the profound interrelationships between design, production, distribution, and marketing within a circular framework.
At the same time, she began teaching in the fields of circular fashion and design and founded CircularAdwiser: two interconnected reservoirs of creative energy and strategic vision.