Her father led a machine shop and her mother waited tables and bartended on weekends.
[1] She was the first person in her family to enroll in college when she began majoring in computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
She eventually changed her major to marketing and earned Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Isenberg School of Management at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1980.
[3] Fournier spent over a decade in the marketing industry: twelve years on the Board of Advisors for the Harley Owners Group at Harley-Davidson Motor Company and seven years as a brand advisor to Irving Oil Corporation.
[4] The following year, she was recognized as a top performer in terms of research impact in a published study conducted by Stanford University.