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Ettenson honored at global brand conferenceBrand and marketing practitioners from around the world honored Thunderbird Professor Richard Ettenson, Ph.D., with a career achievement award Sept. 26 at the 17th annual Asia Brand Congress in Mumbai, India.
 
The Brand Leadership Award that Ettenson received is the most prestigious honor given at the conference, which draws more than 300 brand and marketing executives and practitioners from around the world. About 20 percent of conference participants are CEOs, 45 percent are marketing heads, 15 percent are product managers and 15 percent are advertising and public relations professionals.
 
Only a handful of academics attend the conference, and most recipients of the Brand Leadership Award in past years have been senior brand executives and practitioners. According to conference organizers, the award is based on the recipients’ track record of practical research and value contribution to the industry.
 
Ettenson said his professional interests took a decided turn toward applied business challenges when he came to Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1999.
 
“The focus and mission of the school was unique,” he said. “I entered an environment where the classroom dynamic was exclusively MBA students and executives in Corporate Learning.  It changed my world.”
 
Before coming to Thunderbird, Ettenson said his career was fairly traditional — he directed doctoral dissertations and master’s theses and published theoretical research in a broad range of scientific journals. Since then, his articles have appeared in top management publications such as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Advertising Age.
 
“My focus these days are managers making real decisions that affect their ability to feed their families,” said Ettenson, the Thelma H. Kieckhefer Research Fellow in Global Brand Marketing. “Coming to Thunderbird changed the nature of my research toward research with management impact.”
 
Ettenson’s recent articles have focused on managing global consumer boycotts, brand portfolio rationalization, bridging the gap between marketing and finance, clearing the confusion between reputation and brand, and brand strategy management amid mergers and acquisitions.

Ettenson is a regular contributor to the Thunderbird Knowledge Network. Click here to read his monthly columns.