Center on Global Brand Leadership

 

Bernd Schmitt is the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School in New York and faculty director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership, the leading global forum on branding issues for researchers and executives.

For the 2011-2013 academic years, Professor Schmitt will also be a visiting professor at Nanyang Business School and will head its new Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).

He is widely recognized for his major contributions to branding, marketing, and management through his unique focus on creativity, innovation and the customer experience. Schmitt has authored or co-authored seven books which have been translated into 20 languages, including Experiential Marketing (1999), Customer Experience Management (2003), and Big Think Strategy (2007).

He teaches the course Managing Brands, Identity and Experiences, and won an award for innovation in the classroom for the course Corporate Creativity. He has also taught several other courses, including Market Innovation, Consumer Behavior, Advertising Management, Nonprofit Marketing, Luxury Goods Marketing as well as the Marketing core course. He has held visiting appointments in China, Germany, Poland, South Korea, and Singapore.

Schmitt is a frequent keynote speaker at academic and professional conferences worldwide. He has worked with sponsors and clients that include leading companies in the consumer package goods, automobile, electronics, software, financial services, pharmaceuticals, beauty and cosmetics, hospitality, and media industries.

Schmitt's research focuses on language in consumer behavior, experiential marketing, brand management and international business. His research has been published in leading marketing and psychology journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Schmitt has been profiled on CNNfn's "Business Unusual" and has appeared on BBC, CNBC, CNBC-Asia, CNN, NHK and on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He has contributed articles to The New York Times, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

 

Matthew Quint is the Director of Columbia Business School's Center on Global Brand Leadership, the leading global forum on branding issues for researchers and executives. In this role, Matthew researches, writes, and presents on a wide range of issues critical to building a strong brand. He has particular expertise in marketing ROI, strategies for marketing in the digital age, and the development of creative and effective brand communications.

Matthew is the co-producer of the Center's acclaimed BRITE Conference series which brings together over 400 big thinkers in industry and academia to discuss how innovation and technology help build strong brands. He also works with senior executives from various leading companies -- including Coach, Deloitte, Edelman, Google, SAP, and Visa -- to conduct research, produce events, and promote knowledge sharing among branding and marketing professionals.

Previously, Matthew held positions at Columbia University in which he developed the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, and managed print and digital communications materials for Columbia Law School. Prior to moving to New York City, Matthew was the Assistant Counsellor (Nuclear Science & Technology) at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, DC, where he was instrumental in the negotiation effort that extended the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel program, a highly regarded non-proliferation initiative involving more than 40 countries.

Matthew has a M.S. in strategic communications from Columbia University and B.A. in political science and history from Cornell University.

 

David Rogers is the Executive Director of BRITE at Columbia Business School and the faculty director of the school's Executive Education program on Digital Marketing Strategy. He is the founder and host of the Center on Global Brand Leadership's acclaimed BRITE conference, where leaders from media and business discuss how innovation and technology are transforming the ways we build great brands.

Rogers is a widely recognized leader on digital strategy and brands, known for his unique insights into customer networks. His latest book is The Network Is Your Customer: 5 Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age, published in 2011 by Yale University Press. He is the co-author, with Bernd Schmitt, of There's No Business That's Not Show Business: Marketing in an Experience Culture and co-editor of The Handbook on Brand and Experience Management.

Rogers speaks at conferences worldwide on the ways that digital trends are transforming business strategy. He received the award for Brand Leadership at the 2009 World Brand Congress. He writes regularly for BNET and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Marketplace, Reuters, MSN Money, and Channel NewsAsia. David has advised and consulted on marketing and digital strategies for leading companies in the consumer packaged goods, technology, pharmaceutical, food & beverage, telecom, hospitality, non-profit, and media industries.

David is also a composer and musician whose music ("Rhythmically vital!" - The New York Times) has been heard from jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall.

 

Working with the associate director, the executive director of BRITE and the faculty director, Alison plans and manages outreach and contributes thoughtpieces to the Center's newsletter, Brand Talk, and blog.

Alison hails from the world of television where she has produced a variety of shows for MTV Networks, both in New York and Los Angeles. Additionally, she was Client Manager with the Visual Communications group at Weber Shandwick. During this time, Alison collaborated with the creative services team on branding and marketing initiatives for top-tier companies, including multicultural outreach for ABSOLUT and Nintendo as well as the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Prior to that, she helped launch an e-philanthropic campaign--TouchDC.org--in conjunction with Washington Grantmakers and AOL Time Warner Foundation.

A familiar face to the corridors of Columbia University, Alison is currently working towards her master's degree in Strategic Communications at Columbia. She also received her B.A. in American Studies and Mass Media from Barnard College.

 

Olivier Toubia is Professor of Marketing at Columbia Business School and the Research Director of Columbia Business School's Center on Global Brand Leadership.

Professor Toubia's research focuses on various aspects of innovation and new product development, including idea generation, idea screening, preference measurement, and the diffusion of innovation. He is the winner of two John Little best paper awards, the Frank Bass outstanding dissertation award, and the John Howard dissertation award. Toubia teaches New Product Development in the MBA and Executive MBA programs.

Some of his recent research efforts have focused on the business value derived from online social networks. These efforts have included analyses of the value sellers derive from being linked together in online social commerce websites like the Amazon Marketplace, as well as the comparative value of promotional efforts launched through traditional direct mail campaigns versus offers provided through online social communities.

 

Alain Lemaire is the research coordinator for the Center on Global Brand Leadership. Currently, he works with Professor Olivier Toubia studying people's interactions on social networks. Prior to joining the Center, Alain interned at International Alliance Associates, a small private equity and business development boutique, where he worked on improving the company's technological infrastructure.

Alain holds a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research from the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University.