Ed Peelen has a background in customer marketing, customer intelligence, customer experience and omni-channels, and new customer-focused business models and propositions. As a professor by special appointment, he will focus on the changes in the media landscape and the related advent of content marketing. With the changes to information carriers and communication patterns, it is becoming more important to devote more attention to the narrative, the content, and how it is shared, enriched and distributed. It is also vital to examine its effects on customer engagement, the customer experience and the eventual sale and brand loyalty. Working closely with the business community, Peelen will be researching initiatives in this area. He will also teach the Content Marketing course to students in the Communication Science Bachelor's programme.

Peelen is a partner and co-founder of ICSB Marketing and Strategy. He spent ten years at Nyenrode Business University as a professor, also filling a variety of management roles there, ranging from director of cluster marketing and supply chain management to chairman of executive education and executive programme and master class director. His previous posts also include associate professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam's School of Economics and Rotterdam School of Management. From 1991 to 2000, Peelen served as associate professor of Marketing and Logistics at the UvA, and has been guest-lecturing at the Amsterdam Business School since 2011. He is chairman of the Customer-Focused Business Platform (Platform voor Klantgericht Ondernemen).

Peelen has authored or co-authored more than fifteen books, including Customer Relationship Management (2013) and Economy of Experiences (2015). He has also authored a large number of scientific articles and is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Direct and Data and Digital Marketing Practice.