Authors

Vikas Mittal

Vikas Mittal, PhD, is the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Mittal holds a BBA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a PhD from Temple University. Prior to joining Rice University, he was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Katz Business School and School of Medicine.

Mittal is coeditor of the Journal of Marketing Research and past coeditor of the Journal of Marketing. He received the American Marketing Association’s 2020 Vijay Mahajan Award for sustained contributions to marketing strategy literature over a span of 10 or more years. In 2006, Mittal was honored with the Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award for his article making the year’s most significant long-term contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and/or practice.

Mittal is cofounder of the Collaborative for Customer Based Execution and Strategy (C-CUBES™). His 2000 article outlining the customer-based strategy framework won a FedEx excellence award. He is a fellow of the inaugural Marketing Science Institute Young Scholars cohort, which includes the best and most promising young people in the field.

Mittal has written more than 100 articles for leading marketing, management, decision making, and medical journals, as well as top practitioner outlets like the Harvard Business Review, MIT-Sloan Management Review, Financial Times, Houston Chronicle, World Oil, Marketing News and Aviation Weekly. In 2009, the Journal of Marketing recognized Mittal among the year’s top-five most prolific marketing authors, and he has been included in the American Marketing Association’s top-20 marketing scholars list numerous times. His work has received more than 20,000 citations and been featured in Business Week, Fortune, Time, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Houston Business Journal, as well as on CNNMONEY.com and NPR Radio.

Mittal has taught, consulted, and given executive seminars to participants worldwide from a range of organizations, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, BP, Shell, Cameron, Pfizer, PNC Bank, and Microsoft. Mittal’s teaching excellence has been recognized multiple times by students at the Jones Graduate School of Business, where he received the Teaching Excellence Award in 2012, 2015, and 2017, as well as the Alumni Teaching Award for long-term impact. He was recognized by MBA Poets and Quants for his teaching excellence in 2015.

Hari Sridhar

Hari Sridhar, PhD, is professor of marketing, holder of the Joe Foster ’56 Chair in Business Leadership, and research director of the Sales Leadership Institute at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University. Prior to joining Texas A&M, Sridhar was a professor at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and Smeal College of Business at Penn State University. He holds a BE in mechanical engineering from R.V. College of Engineering in Bangalore, India, MS in engineering management from the University of Missouri-Rolla, and PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Sridhar uses quantitative techniques, such as machine learning, non-linear optimization, structural econometrics, and Kalman filtering, to help CEOs and board members take the guesswork out of strategy formulation and execution. His focus is on the business-to-business (e.g., energy, K-12 education, and media) and healthcare sectors. Sridhar has provided scientific strategy consultation to numerous organizations, including ABS Group, Avery Dennison, DistributionNOW, Dow Chemical, IBM, Kansas City Public Schools, Microsoft, P-66, Schlumberger, SNC-Lavalin, Sodexo, St. Gobain, the Seattle Times, Sysco Foods, and TEEX.

Sridhar’s work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, MIT-Sloan Management Review, and the Harvard Business Review, among other publications. He has been included among the American Marketing Association’s top-50 marketing scholars for seven consecutive years. He currently serves as associate editor of the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Sridhar’s research was a finalist for the Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award.

Sridhar’s work has been featured in Aviation Week, Booz & Co., Forbes, Reuters, the Houston Business Journal, and the Houston Chronicle, as well as on Fox News and National Public Radio. He was recognized as one of the Marketing Science Institute’s Young Scholars in 2013 and was the youngest recipient of the Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research in 2014. In 2018, Texas A&M University recognized Sridhar as its Presidential Impact Fellow for research excellence.

Sridhar is an award-winning teacher, being recognized for his classroom excellence by Texas A&M University and Penn State University and chosen as one of the 40 Most Outstanding MBA Professors Under 40 by Poets and Quants in 2018. He is coauthor of the book Marketing Strategy: Based on First Principles and Data Analytics, currently being used in more than 75 business schools worldwide.