Mirella Kleijnen obtained her PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Business at Maastricht University. Her dissertation focused on consumer evaluations of mobile service innovations. Her current research interests include customer experience management, adoption versus resistance to innovation, digital marketing, and more recently, health marketing. Her work has been published in various academic journals, including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Service Research, the International Journal of Management Reviews, the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Interactive Marketing, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the Journal of Economic Psychology, and the Journal of Consumer Affairs. In her research, she actively seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice through various collaborations with the business community.

She is a passionate teacher and is deeply involved in various teaching programs, ranging from basic marketing courses for first-year bachelor's students to specialized (research-related) current affairs courses for the master's level. She is also actively involved in various part-time programs for professionals. Furthermore, since January 2019, she has been Vice Dean for Education at the School of Business and Economics, Amsterdam.