Like information and technology, marketing is undergoing a continuing revolution. The needs and interests of consumers and corporations are evolving, and the means of informing them about products and services are changing dramatically.

Owen has met this revolution with one of its own. The school’s marketing department is essentially a new entity, bridging the gap between the quantitative and behavioral, presenting a cutting-edge synthesis to a new generation of students. As those students apply classroom lessons, and as alumni meet the business world’s present-day challenges, this energized Owen team is helping to reinvent marketing in a digital age and bolster the school’s reputation on the national and international scene.

Guiding Text

Dawn Iacobucci

If one person could be said to embody the transition from the foundational strengths of 20th century marketing to the new realities of the 21st, it would be Dawn Iacobucci, E. Bronson Ingram Professor in Marketing. Highly awarded for her work at Kellogg and then Wharton, she is a widely regarded expert on networks and quantitative psychological research who has published in the top journals and worked alongside marketing luminaries Philip Kotler and Gil Churchill.

If there is a guiding text for Owen’s marketing revolution, it may well be her new book, MM: Marketing Management. Practical, colorful and highly accessible, it is an introduction that brings nuance and application to the basics, swapping the stodgy for the downright sexy. It is—in layout, design, writing style, even price—the perfect example of what modern marketing can and must be. In taking for granted global business and the digital age, the book is as cutting-edge as her work and as the department’s faculty and direction—both of which she leads with what Dean Bradford calls “a commitment to a shared vision of elevating our standard in the eyes of the university, the academy and the business community.”

Iacobucci says, “Our faculty is comprised of extremely talented marketing people who genuinely care about the student experience. We are devoted to building Owen and taking care of the students. We’re looking to get the word out that, with the people and programs we have in place, our marketing MBA students are among the best anywhere.”

Consumer Behavior

From left, Steve Posavac, Jennifer Escalas and Steve Hoeffler

One of the clearest proofs of Owen’s ability to draw top talent and foster in it both vision and cohesion lies in the behavioral side of its marketing department. The teamwork is epitomized in the Consumer Behavior class taught by Jennifer Escalas, Steve Hoeffler and Steve Posavac, along with Dawn Iacobucci.

“Consumer behavior is the foundation for managerial judgment in marketing,” Posavac says. “Each of us carved out a quarter of the class in line with our unique specialties.”

Escalas, Associate Professor in Marketing, who runs a company with her husband making and marketing customized swimsuits, is an expert on brands, identification and culture. Hoeffler, Associate Professor in Marketing, has a background in consulting for P&G and IBM, and research interests that include consumer behavior and radically new products. Posavac, E. Bronson Ingram Associate Professor in Marketing, who previously taught and served as Associate Dean at the University of Rochester, cites a long-term interest in “how managers use what we know about people to make better decisions.”

The application of their varied research interests to their individual classroom work gives students a broad knowledge of technique and application. Their investment in the Owen community does the rest.

“We get to know students on a one-to-one basis,” says Hoeffler, “so we can work from what they’re interested in and where they’re going.”

As for the bottom line, Escalas says, “Hire the best faculty members you can, teach both the basics and the cutting-edge aspects of the field, give students some immersion in the real world, and you’ll do well.”

Quantitative Approach

From left, Mark Ratchford and Jeff Dotson

Jeff Dotson and Mark Ratchford, both Assistant Professors of Marketing, are the department’s young guns on the quantitative side. Dotson says he was drawn by the fact that Owen has an environment where people enjoy working together and get along. Ratchford heard good things about Owen from Steve Posavac, whom he had met while at the University of Rochester.

Dotson’s work employs statistical techniques in marketing. “Companies are drowning in data but starving for knowledge,” he says. “Being able to take information and turn it into actionable insights is a huge challenge, and anyone who does analytical marketing is really in demand now.”

Ratchford’s work “has to do with how people relate to one another with social networks, with the interactions among companies and people,” particularly the way companies form coalitions and achieve synergy in developing products. He is teaching courses on new products and marketing strategy this year.

Both are pleased with the department’s approach and their roles within it.

“This is an amazing group in the sense that everyone is new,” Dotson says. “It’s really unusual for a marketing department.”

Ratchford adds, “I think even among the quantitative types, the kind of work Jeff and I are doing is a bit unique. My work uses cooperative game theory, which nobody in marketing does. I kind of knew that only places with more of a cutting-edge vision would be interested in me.”

Iacobucci agrees on both counts. She describes both as “nice guys who are super-smart,” adding, “Since we’re a small group, it would have been safer just to go traditional, but that would be boring, no?”

Resume Building

From left, Shashi Shanbhag, Cara Tragseiler, Patrick Phillippi, Phoebe Zhang and Allison Earnhart

Five Owen marketing students took their classroom knowledge into the business world last semester in a pilot program that brought the immersion concept to the department. Phoebe Zhang, Cara Tragseiler, Shashi Shanbhag, Patrick Phillippi and Allison Earnhart, all MBA candidates for 2010, spent 11 weeks together under Yvonne Martin-Kidd, Executive Director of Marketing & Communications and Adjunct Professor of Marketing. Together they served as a consulting team on a rebranding and marketing project for a worldwide telecommunications software firm.

“I probably learned more about marketing and brand management from that one project than from any single class I’ll take,” Phillippi says.

The Brand Group met weekly with Martin-Kidd, who Zhang says, “gave us the tools and great advice, drawing on her marketing background, and then she let us run with it.”

Phillippi adds, “The great thing about Owen, is that it’s a small school so you know everyone, but people have worked in all kinds of industries.”

Following interviews with senior management, employees and customers, the team made recommendations for everything from logo redesign to improved product bundling. “We couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of the strength of Owen students,” Shanbhag says, “or our ability to do the job of high-priced consultants.”

All are excited about the future of such ventures. “This pilot program was a great addition to the marketing curriculum,” Tragseiler says. “I was excited to see they’re planning to expand the Brand Group into a Capstone project and to add a Brand Week between mods 1 and 2.”

Earnhart, who, with her colleagues, represents the face of the department’s continuing revolution, adds, “The marketing curriculum is definitely taking huge steps forward.”

Investment Opportunities

From left, Gil Fuqua, BA’73, MBA’75, Dru Anderson, BA’80, EMBA’89, and Pat Watson, EMBA’83

It may specialize in investor relations, but as a firm in the business of presenting other companies, Corporate Communications Inc. is a hub of strategic marketing. In producing, among other things, quarterly and annual reports for a variety of small- and mid-cap publicly held companies, it makes financial data useful to investors, analysts, the press and public. Doing so draws heavily on what Gil Fuqua calls the cross-training he and fellow Senior Vice Presidents Dru Anderson and Pat Watson received at Owen.

“We are in the communications business,” Fuqua says, “but what we do is largely based on a thorough and relatable understanding of a company’s financial picture. Our Owen training in finance and accounting provided the right base of knowledge.”

“We always say we are marketing companies as investment opportunities to a Wall Street audience,” Anderson says.

As in so many firms, theirs is a mixture of business basics and ever-changing technology. “The information we deliver to the market is the same as it was 25 years ago,” Watson says. “The real difference is that instead of faxing or mailing it to a couple of hundred people, you’re posting it online to countless people, and it’s almost instantaneous.”

All have kept a close watch on Owen’s continuing transformation. “I’m very positive about the changes Owen has made in its marketing department,” Fuqua says. “What has too often been left out and what Owen is addressing is that once you’ve got the information, how you communicate it is just as important. Owen students learn both skills.”

Patients’ Needs

Jill Austin, MBA’88

The marketing challenges Jill Austin, the Chief Marketing Officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and her team faced with the $64 million rollout of Vanderbilt Health at One Hundred Oaks were both sweeping and intricate. They had to (1) reassure neighbors, (2) form alliances with physicians, the city and merchants, (3) inform the media, and (4) bring patients to 22 planned clinics and additional offices.

Their playbook contained everything from community meetings to Twitter, reflecting the desire of the VUMC marketing team “to communicate with people in all the ways they want to be communicated with,” Austin says.

The marketing process has been as much about listening as speaking. “One of my favorite quotes was from a focus group on our Web site: ‘Please make this more about us than about you,’ which is so great,” she says. “That became a philosophy that pervades our work.”

Cyril Stewart, the Senior Director of Facility Resource Strategy and Management at VUMC, says, “I think that Jill’s careful crafting of the One Hundred Oaks focus group sessions is what turned the tide on the project.” Austin, however, is quick to share the credit, saying, “We couldn’t do what we do in marketing if it weren’t for our colleagues in other areas, including news and public affairs, community outreach and physician liaison service. We are all part of the communications channel.”

And for Austin, the end is clear. “It’s not about selling us,” she says. “It’s about understanding the needs of our patients, families and neighbors, and then working to best serve those needs.”

Bringing meaningful change to the health care industry poses an array of challenges, but there are opportunities as well. Surrounded by Nashville’s thriving health care community, the Owen School has developed world-class academic programs that address the business needs of the industry, and its faculty, students and alumni are leading the way in shaping how health care will be managed for generations to come.

Bill Frist, M.D.

Bill Frist’s spring health policy course is the first of its kind—an even mix of medical and business students in a small seminar that melds the cultures of business and management with the cultures of medicine and quality in patient centeredness. With a dozen years of policy experience as a U.S. Senator and 20 years of medical profession experience, as well as his current business and private equity background, Frist is uniquely qualified to teach the course and notes that Owen is uniquely positioned to offer it. 

“There are three generations of health care managers and entrepreneurs in Nashville, and that marriage of ongoing real-life interaction and experience gained by the students with the robust academic discipline through Owen is unprecedented,” he says. “It provides a foundation for continued growth in producing leaders who will address, and ultimately solve, the huge challenges of health care gaps and access in this country.” 

By covering topics like health care reform and global health care, a cause Frist is passionate about as evidenced by his new Hope Through Healing Hands nonprofit, he believes his students will leave with a new knowledge of finance policy and health service delivery. Since Owen is geographically situated in what he calls the “Silicon Valley of health care,” Frist is confident that graduates of the school will be the best equipped to play a critical role in addressing “the single greatest domestic challenge in terms of our economy and the future.”

Joe Cashia, EMBA’95

Geographic location and real-world learning attracted Joe Cashia, CEO of dialysis provider National Renal Alliance, to Vanderbilt’s Executive MBA program. “I was entrenched in middle and senior management, and there was a lot of consolidation in my industry. I wanted some day to run my own show but realized that my clinical background would limit my ability to do that, both from a practical and an objective standpoint,” he says. 

Cashia credits his success in large part to his Owen experience. “It really gave me an overall view of business, and not so much the myopic day-to-day view that you get in on-the-job training,” he explains. “The EMBA experience helped me germinate the idea of how to start a company and what it would take to go through the funding and so forth. It really had a huge impact on me.”

Having access to real-world health care expertise through Owen’s faculty has proven invaluable for Cashia. “You can make the most of your Owen experience, and it can be the best thing in your life. No one can sit here and say, ‘Well, I never had the opportunity.’ Not in Nashville, not in health care, not at Owen—not with everything that is available to you.”

Frank Grant, EMBA’91

A phone call in 2005 from Cisco Systems’ senior vice president for North America and Japan could have intimidated Frank Grant, but his Vanderbilt Executive MBA experience gave him the skill sets and confidence he needed. Grant was charged with building the first North American vertical for Cisco Systems and today serves as the company’s Senior Director of North American Healthcare.

It was not a difficult decision for Grant, who jumped at the opportunity to work in such a dynamic and varied sector. “I’ve worked in lots of other verticals, but it’s by far the most complicated, and also the most interesting as a result,” he says.

Although the current health care environment is undoubtedly challenging, Cisco is fairing remarkably well: The company has almost tripled its sales over the past three years. Grant also sees opportunity ahead. “Health care is under tremendous financial stress with the number of uninsured increasing as people lose their jobs, but people are starting to realize they must manage more effectively and efficiently,” he explains. It’s important, he argues, to strike a balance between the patient’s standpoint—improving care, convenience and affordability—and the provider’s standpoint of doing things that show immediate financial benefit.

Grant believes that technology is the key to finding that balance. “Health care institutions, from the payers to the providers to the life sciences companies, are seeing that technology is helping improve efficiency and improve patient care.”

Larry Van Horn

These are challenging but opportunistic times in health care, says Professor Larry Van Horn, Faculty Director of Owen’s Health Care Programs. “Health care is a dominant sector of the U.S. economy that is facing a tremendous challenge, tremendous change and tremendous governmental intervention, so the value of good management and good decision making is critical,” he explains.

Those studying toward a Health Care MBA degree account for close to 20 percent of Owen’s MBA students, and the new Master of Management in Health Care is only further expanding the school’s footprint in this area. “There are synergies and similarities between the Health Care MBA and the MM Health Care, which means we can share some of the common experience and some of the common educational content across those programs,” Van Horn says. “This opens doors between the Owen School and the delivery organizations in health care and establishes relationships which could be fruitful for the careers of our Health Care MBA students.”

Van Horn is excited about Owen’s future and the unique position it has to capitalize on its relationship with a top-ranked medical school and medical center. “By being located in Nashville with access to keen minds who are solving and addressing the problems of health care delivery, we are able to shape the minds of future health care management.”

Ernie Clevenger, EMBA’81

Ernie Clevenger, President of CareHere LLC, credits his Owen experience with giving him the necessary tool sets and personal relationships—with both student colleagues and professors, such as business entrepreneur mentor Germain Böer—to succeed in the health care industry for the past 20 years. “My Owen experience was fabulous,” he says, noting that CareHere’s Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer is fellow alum Ben Baker, EMBA’96, and its Director of Sales is Owen graduate Joc Collignon, MBA’07.

CareHere celebrated its fifth year of operation in January. With 85 clinics in 13 states, its unique business model brings the three Ps—the payer, the patient and the provider—under one roof, thereby lowering employer costs while improving patients’ health. “Our clients see their health care cost trend decline,” Clevenger says, adding that many also see an increase in productivity since most patients are in and out of CareHere’s on-site clinics in less than half an hour.

But despite all the innovative technology in health care, Clevenger notes that the doctor/patient relationship is the true measure of success. “At the end of the day it really comes down to the chemistry between doctors and patients. … For those patients to keep coming back—to trust their doctors, to give them their complicated conditions such as hypertension and diabetes to manage—comes down to their relationship with the physicians.”

Phyllis Ekdall, MMHC’09

Phyllis Ekdall, a CPA at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is one of 25 students in Owen’s new Master of Management in Health Care program, which is designed to give working health care professionals the business fundamentals to succeed in their industry. The students in the program come from both clinical and non-clinical backgrounds. Among Ekdall’s classmates are doctors, nurses, and even a marketing professional and an architect.

While practitioners stand to benefit from learning critical business skills that may not have been a part of their formal training, professionals like Ekdall gain a broader perspective through the program. “For us non-clinical personnel it fills the gap of how to integrate those business skills with the clinical personnel and really stand in their shoes and understand their perceptions.”

What drew Ekdall initially to the MM Health Care was Owen’s reputation as a top-tier business school and its convenient schedule: one night a week, one weekend a month, for one year. But more than anything else, she considers it a rewarding experience because of the people she’s met along the way.

“It’s been more enriching than I ever imagined in terms of actually being able to work and talk real-time with my colleagues about how that translates into what we do every day,” says Ekdall, noting the camaraderie among her classmates.

“Because you have access to so many individuals with different backgrounds, a lot of times you’ll find yourself solving problems in hallway meetings. We’re really learning a lot from each other.”

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper

Jim Cooper, Congressman for Tennessee’s Fifth District, has taught health care regulation for a dozen years at Owen and says one thing keeps him coming back: the students. “The students are great and are the reason I teach. They are lively, curious, questioning, pertinent, fun, and engaging,” he explains.

Cooper says it’s exciting to teach in such a fast-moving field as health care regulation, where a textbook can’t begin to keep up with the monumental changes that will impact Nashville more than any other region of the country.

“Nashville is ground zero for health care and health care reform. The changes will shape Nashville more than anywhere else and that’s before, during and after the legislation gets through Congress.” The wealth of practical knowledge in Nashville available to Owen faculty and students catapults it above and beyond other health care programs at other institutions of learning.

“Owen has one of the best, if not the best, health care programs in the country because it is so practical. We are surrounded by major CEOs who are nationally and internationally famous for creating new business models to serve patients,” says Cooper. “No other town in the country has that. … They’re neighbors, they’re friends, they’re frequent visitors to the program, they’re guest lecturers, they teach every once in a while. It’s like you’re growing up with these folks who are at the cutting edge of American health care.”

Minh-Triet Lethi Tucker, MMgt’72,
and Greg Tucker, BA’68, MMgt’71

Little did Greg Tucker know that an admissions brochure he designed would attract an honors student from Vietnam who would later become his wife. Greg was a member of the founding Vanderbilt GSM class, which met in the University Club basement. He remembers the day Minh-Triet’s application arrived at the admissions office, where he worked. “I opened the letter and thought, ‘I have to meet this young lady.’”

Greg was in Dean Igor Ansoff’s office, which overlooked West End Avenue, the day Minh-Triet arrived on campus. “I looked out the window, and coming down the sidewalk was this beautiful creature,” he says. Their initial introduction, however, didn’t go as well as he’d planned. Minh-Triet explains that she had a difficult time understanding Greg’s Southern accent.

After graduation Minh-Triet joined the MITRE Corp. in Washington, D.C., as a consultant. Greg continued at the school as its first Director of Admissions and Placement. In 1976 Greg enrolled in law school in Washington, and in 1977 they married in Constitution Gardens. During the Reagan administration, Minh-Triet was on the White House staff as Senior Policy Analyst for Science and Technology, while Greg practiced law with the Covington & Burling firm.

The couple dreamed of retiring to a farm, and it just so happened that one neighboring Greg’s aunt’s property outside Nashville became available at the same time his client HCA asked him to return to Middle Tennessee. It seemed “divinely planned,” says Minh-Triet. Today they are proud parents of a daughter and son, Brigitte and Burney, who are 2006 and 2008 Vanderbilt graduates, respectively.

Maria Renz, MBA’96,
and Tom Barr, MBA’98

As a Project Manager at Hallmark, Maria Renz was puzzled by a seemingly overconfident Owen summer intern. “I was a bit taken aback … the other two interns contact-ed me when they came to town. They’d say, ‘Oh yeah, Tom Barr is here,’ and I’d think, ‘Who the heck is Tom Barr?’”

Renz tracked Barr down, and they soon became friends. After graduation Tom joined GlaxoSmithKline in Pittsburgh. Renz was then with Kraft Foods in New York City, where GlaxoSmithKline’s ad agency is located. They began dating, even after Renz moved to Seattle to work for Amazon. Tom began taking Friday night flights from Pittsburgh to Seattle and then red-eyes home on Sunday.

“After a year we thought, ‘This is crazy. We have to figure out how to make this work,’” Renz says.

Before they even began exploring opportunities, a headhunter contacted Tom about coming to work for Starbucks Coffee Co. Tom is now the Vice President of North American Marketing for the coffee retailer, while Renz is a Vice President with Endless.com, Amazon’s shoe and handbag Web site.

“Whenever I need business advice or want to talk to my best friend, I turn to Tom. We have a great network of friends through Owen,” she says.

Tom serves on the Owen Alumni Board, and the couple participated in last winter’s Marketing Camp. They also have two children—prospective students for the Owen classes of 2031 and 2032, no doubt.

Donna Zavada Wilkinson, MBA’93,
and Jeff Wilkinson, MBA’92

Donna Wilkinson knew it was true love when Jeff agreed to help her cater an engagement party for Owen’s Director of Corporate Relations, Peter Veruki. The commitment meant that Jeff, a diehard Duke fan, would miss the NCAA regional finals basketball game between the Blue Devils and Kentucky—a game that many pundits consider the best ever played among the college ranks. Donna, at the time, worked with Veruki in the Owen placement office.

“I used to go into the placement office every day ostensibly to find a job,” laughs Jeff.

The two first met during an ethics breakout session Jeff helped facilitate during first-year orientation. He remarked about the prevalence of Duke graduates in the group, and Donna, a Duke alum herself, introduced herself afterwards. Jeff moved to Atlanta to work for Accenture after graduation, while Donna began her career with Sara Lee in Memphis, Tenn.

The couple timed their December 1995 wedding to coincide with the completion of her management training at Sara Lee and a transfer for both of them to Dallas.

The Wilkinsons both serve on the Owen Alumni Advisory Board and live in Indianapolis with their two young daughters. Donna is the Vice President of Human Resources with Pacers Sports & Entertainment, while Jeff is a Partner with Accenture. Says Donna, “We have a special place in our hearts for Owen. I loved my time there, and it was a bonus that I met my husband there.”

Vicki Simons Heyman, BA’79, MBA’80,
and Bruce Heyman, BA’79, MBA’80

When Vicki and Bruce Heyman paired up during a New Venture Creation course, they had no idea how it would change their lives. Taught by longtime Owen Professor Ed Bartee, the course not only introduced them to some of their closest friends but also sparked a romance that would last a lifetime.

“Our first date was Lamar Alexander’s governor’s ball,” says Bruce, a Managing Director for Goldman Sachs, who is the firm’s recruiting captain for Vanderbilt. The Heymans have remained very involved with the university, serving as co-chairs of their 25-year reunion in 2005. Vicki also has served on the Vanderbilt Alumni Board and on the Hillel Board for the Schulman Center for Jewish Life.

“Our participation has been exciting for us because we’ve been part of the upward trajectory of Owen. It’s also come at a very exciting time because our kids have been going through the college process,” she says.

Their youngest daughter, Caroline, is a high school senior, and middle daughter, Liza, is a Vanderbilt junior. Their oldest child, David, is 23 and an analyst in the foreign currency sales and derivatives department at JPMorgan, which, coincidentally, is the position Vicki held for four years after working in recruiting at Bankers Trust.

Elaine Wu, MBA’04,
and Jon Weindruch, BA’98, MBA’04

Elaine Wu and Jon Weindruch’s first date, an informal meet-up at a coffee shop, never happened. “Elaine stood me up,” jokes Jon. In reality, Elaine was a newly trans-planted international student stuck outside of downtown Nashville during a thunderstorm without a car or Jon’s cell phone number.

The two first met during a retreat about ethics sponsored by Cal Turner, which brought together students from Owen, as well as the Divinity School, Vanderbilt Law School, and the School of Medicine. They started dating during their second year, and Jon, who founded the Web-site strategy consulting company Websults while at Owen, followed Elaine to North Carolina, where she worked for Hanes after graduation.

In May 2005, during a return visit to Nashville, Jon proposed to Elaine at Percy Warner Park. They were married six months later in Taipei, Taiwan, by a pastor who had pursued his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Some of their Owen friends also traveled to the wedding.

Elaine is currently Director of Internet Marketing for Victoria’s Secret, which operates the biggest retail apparel-accessory Web site in the United States. The couple lives in Columbus, Ohio, and Jon travels regularly to Nashville to consult with several clients, including the Owen School, which he has been assisting with Internet marketing.