The American Marketing Association is pleased to announce the selection of six distinguished scholars to be inducted as AMA Fellows at the 2024 AMA Winter Academic Conference.
This year’s honorees include academics who span the discipline and have made extensive contributions both within the AMA and across other organizations and institutions. They include: Harald van Heerde, Ronald Hill, Robert Leone, Lisa Scheer, Venkatesh Shankar, and Vanitha Swaminathan.
Harald van Heerde, University of New South Wales
Harald van Heerde (Ph.D., University of Groningen, the Netherlands) is a Research Professor of Marketing at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. Harald specializes in econometric models to improve marketing decision-making. His wide-ranging research interests include the marketing mix, social media, mobile apps, digital marketing, loyalty programs, branding, retailing, and entertainment marketing. His research has also contributed insights on marketing disrupted by product harm crises, price wars, and the business cycle. Van Heerde’s research uses a variety of methods, including dynamic models, endogeneity correction, text mining, and operations research methods.
Van Heerde has widely published in Journal of Marketing (JM), Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), and Marketing Science. Harald is the recipient of nine paper awards: the MSI / H. Paul Root Award (JM), the William O’Dell Award for Long-Term Impact (JMR), the Paul E. Green Award (JMR), two Informs Society of Marketing Science Long-Term Impact Awards, the Jan-Benedict Steenkamp Long-Term Impact Award of the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM), and three IJRM Best Paper Award. Harald was selected as the recipient of the Churchill Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Research.
Van Heerde served as an editor of Journal of Marketing from 2018–2022. He also served as an Associate Editor at Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and IJRM. He serves on the AMA Publication Committee. Van Heerde will chair the 2024 ISMS Marketing Science Conference in Sydney.
Van Heerde has attracted AU$1.9M in international research grants across the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Australia. Van Heerde is the Vice-Chairman of AiMark, a nonprofit global community of academics, large data providers (Europanel, GfK, Kantar, IRI), and captains of industry. Van Heerde has consulted for Edeka (Germany), Unilever (the Netherlands), and Fonterra (Australia).
Ronald Hill, American University
Ronald Paul Hill, Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Maryland, is the Dean’s Professor of Marketing and Public Policy at the American University Kogod School of Business. He has authored over 200 journal articles, books, chapters, and conference papers on topics that include impoverished consumer behavior, marketing ethics, corporate social responsibility, human development, and public policy. Outlets for this research have included Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Business and Society, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Harvard Business Review.
He served as the Vice President of Publications for the American Marketing Association, and he is Editor in Chief of the Responsible Research in Business and Management Honor Roll. His term as Editor of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing extended from July 2006 until June 2012, and he served as Editor of Journal of Consumer Affairs from 2018–2022. Awards include the Williams-Qualls-Spratlen Multicultural Mentoring Award of Excellence, Villanova University Outstanding Faculty Research Award, Pollay Prize for Excellence in the Study of Marketing in the Public Interest, AMA Marketing and Society Special Interest Group Lifetime Achievement Award, Alan N. Nash Distinguished Doctoral Graduate Award, and VSB McDonough Family Faculty Award for Research Excellence.
His 2014 article won the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing Thomas Kinnear Award in 2016, his 2015 Journal of Consumer Affairs article won the best paper award in 2016, and his 2015 Journal of Macromarketing article won the Slater Award in 2016. He also was awarded the Marketing Management Association Master Scholar Award, and he was given the William L. Wilkie Marketing for a Better World Award in 2019. In 2023, he received the Outstanding Scholarship, Research, Creative Activity and Other Professional Contributions Award at American University.
Robert Leone, Texas Christian University
Robert P. Leone received a BA in Mathematics and an MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington and a PhD in Marketing from Purdue University. Prior to joining TCU in 2008, Leone was a Chaired Professor at The Ohio State University (1992–2008) and The University of Texas at Austin (1978–1992).
Leone served as Coeditor of Journal of Marketing from 2009–2011. He is also the recipient of the 2010 Churchill Award given by the AMA’s Marketing Research SIG for “lifetime achievement in the area of marketing research.” He is also the Chair of the AMA Foundation Board. Professor Leone’s primary research interests involve investigating the effects of advertising, price, and promotion on market performance, branding and brand equity, and developing marketing metrics to help guide strategic decisions. He has written extensively in this area and has published in such journals as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Management Science, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Retailing, and Operations Research.
Leone’s teaching interests are in the areas of brand management, marketing research, and customer relationship management. He has taught courses at the undergraduate, MBA, and PhD levels, as well as various modules in executive education programs. He has won a number of teaching awards including the 2019 & 2014 Outstanding Elective Professor Award from the Neeley School of Business at TCU, the 2005 Outstanding Elective Professor award from the MBA students at Ohio State University, and the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Outstanding Marketing Elective award given by the MBA students at Ohio State. Leone is also an active consultant and has worked for a wide range of domestic and global companies including Alliance Data Systems, The Limited, P&G, and Sears.
Leone is involved in a number of professional activities. He has served on the AMA’s Educator’s Council, cochaired the AMA’s Summer Educator’s Conference, and cochaired the 2011 AMA’s. Leone was also named the 1997 Central Ohio Educational Marketer of the Year by the Columbus Chapter of the American Marketing Association.
Lisa Scheer, University of Missouri
Lisa K. Scheer is Emma S. Hibbs Distinguished Professor at University of Missouri’s Trulaske College of Business and Professor of Strategic Business-to-Business Management at University of Graz (Austria). She earned her PhD in Marketing at Northwestern University and a BSBA and MBA at the University of Missouri.
Scheer developed, organized, and chaired the inaugural Marketing Strategy Consortium, has been Director/Codirector of eight Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) PhD Research Camps, and cochaired the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Summer and Winter Academic Conferences and AMA/Sheth Doctoral Consortium. Scheer has been honored as an ISBM Fellow, the Society for Marketing Advance’s 2021 Distinguished Scholar, and Indiana University’s 2022 Haring Legacy Speaker. She is on ISBM’s Academic Advisory Board and served three years on AMA’s Academic Council. Scheer has been a keynote speaker or featured scholar at conferences and universities in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
Scheer’s academically rigorous and managerially relevant research on marketing strategy and marketing relationships appears in Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Journal of Marketing (JM), Academy of Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM), Journal of International Marketing (JIM), and other outlets. Her research awards include the AMA Interorganizational SIG’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Louis W. Stern Award, as well as the European Marketing Academy’s Jan-Benedict Steenkamp Award.
Scheer serves as an area editor for JAMS, IJRM, and Journal of Retailing and on editorial or advisory boards for JMR, JM, JIM, AMS Review, Journal of Business Market Management, International Marketing Review, and European Journal of Marketing. She has been named an Outstanding Area Editor by JAMS and twice recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer by JM.
Venkatesh Shankar, Southern Methodist University
Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar has been recognized as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Top 1% of Marketing Scientists, Top 10 Innovation Scholars, and Top Retail Influencers. His areas of specialization include AI, digital business, marketing strategy, retailing, international marketing, and pricing. He is Coeditor of the Handbook of Marketing Strategy and author of Shopper Marketing. He has published in JMR, Management Science, Marketing Science, JM, SMJ, HBR, SMR, JPPM and JR.
The Shankar-Spiegel Award is named in his honor. He is a winner of the Margaret Blair Award for Marketing Accountability, the AMS Cutco/Vector Outstanding Marketing Educator Award for lifetime contributions to marketing, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Retailing from AMA, the Mahajan Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Strategy from AMA, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIM, Calcutta, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT, Kharagpur, the Clarke Award for the Outstanding Direct and Interactive Marketing Educator, the Long-Term Impact Award for an IJRM article, the Paul E. Green Award for the Best Article in JMR, and the Lehmann Award for the best dissertation-based article in an AMA journal.
He is Chair, MASB Advisory Council, Ex-President, Marketing Strategy SIG, and serves on the CMO council and B2B Leadership Board. He was also a two-term Academic Trustee of MSI. He is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Interactive Marketing (JIM) and was/is Associate Editor (AE) of JMR, JM, Management Science, and IJRM. He serves on the policy boards of JR and JIM. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for outstanding teaching. He has been a visiting faculty at Stanford, MIT,
INSEAD, Singapore Management University, SDA Bocconi, Chinese European International Business School, and Indian School of Business. He earned a PhD in marketing from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Vanitha Swaminathan, University of Pittsburgh
Vanitha Swaminathan is Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing at the University of Pittsburgh and the Director of the Center for Branding at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Business. Her research focuses on branding strategy, with a particular emphasis on digital branding. Swaminathan has published in various leading marketing and management journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Interactive Marketing, among others.
She is a current Coeditor of Journal of Marketing. She has won awards for her research including the Lehmann Best Paper Award and Journal of Advertising’s Best Paper Award. Swaminathan has previously served a three-year term on the American Marketing Association Board of Directors and has served on AMA’s Academic Council as President. She has also coauthored the Fifth Edition of the world-renowned textbook, “Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity,” along with Professor Kevin Lane Keller.
The distinction of “AMA Fellow” is given to members in good standing of the AMA who have made significant contributions to the research, theory, and practice of marketing, and/or to the service and activities of the AMA over a prolonged period of time. The AMA Fellow designation is intended to recognize marketing academics’ achievement, but it is also designed to create a space for fellowship, discussion, collaboration, and continued contributions to the discipline.
Each year, a new cohort is nominated from the academic community, selected by a group of distinguished peers, and honored at the AMA Winter Academic Conference. Since the program’s inaugural year, over 50 scholars have been inducted as AMA Fellows. Nominations for new fellows are accepted on an annual basis. Click here to learn more about the AMA Fellows and the nomination process.
The annual Winter Academic Conference creates space to honor special achievements in the discipline. This year, the awards presented will include:
- AMA Fellows
- William L. Wilkie Marketing for a Better World Award
- Erin Anderson Award for an Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor
- John A. Howard/ AMA Doctoral Dissertation Award
- AMA-Irwin-McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award
- Robert Lusch Early Career Research Award
- Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book Award