The following are biographies of the founders of the Shankar-Spiegel Best Dissertation Proposal Award:

Venkatesh Shankar

Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar is Professor of Marketing and Ford Chair in Marketing & E-Commerce and Director of Research at the Center for Retailing Studies, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University. His areas of specialization include Digital Business, Marketing Strategy, Innovation, New Product Management, Retailing, Services Marketing, Pricing, International Marketing, Branding, Mobile Marketing, and Artificial Intelligence. Shankar has a Ph.D. in marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University and has corporate experience in the areas of marketing and international business development. He has worked in diverse countries.

He has been recognized as one among the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, as one among the Top 1% of Marketing Scientists, as a Top 10 Innovation Scholar, and as a Top Retail Influencer. He is a winner of the 2022 Margaret Blair Award for Marketing Accountability, 2017 AMS/Cutco Vector Outstanding Marketing Educator Award, 2015 Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2013 Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2013-2014 Retailing Lifetime Achievement Award, 2012 Vijay Mahajan Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Strategy, 2006 Robert Clarke Award for the Outstanding Direct and Interactive Marketing Educator, 2014 EMAC-IJRM Steenkamp Award for the article with long-term marketing impact, 2014 Best Services Article Award from American Marketing Association (AMA), 2001 IBM Faculty Partnership Award, the 1999 Paul Green Award for the Best Article in Journal of Marketing Research, the 2000 Don Lehmann Award for the Best Dissertation-based Article in an AMA journal, and the 2008 Sheth Award for the best paper in the Journal of Academy of Marketing Science. The Shankar-Spiegel Award from the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation is named in his honor. He has published in academic journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Harvard Business Review, and Sloan Management Review, and in business periodicals such as Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. He is ex-President of the Marketing Strategy SIG, AMA and serves on the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) council and Business-to-Business (B2B) Leadership Board. He is a 15-time Faculty Fellow of the AMA Doctoral Consortium. He is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Interactive Marketing and is an ex-academic Trustee of the MSI. He is also ex-associate editor of the Journal of Marketing Research, ex-associate editor of Management Science, and ex-Area Editor, Journal of Marketing. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Journal of Retailing and Journal of Interactive Marketing. He has been a keynote speaker in several conferences and has delivered over 500 presentations in countries ranging from Australia to the Netherlands. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for Teaching and has taught Marketing Management, Digital Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Analytics, Customer Value Management, Innovation and New Product Management, Marketing Research, and International Marketing. He has been a visiting faculty at Stanford University, MIT, INSEAD, Singapore Management University, SDA Bocconi, Chinese European International Business School, and the Indian School of Business. He is co-editor of the Handbook of Marketing Strategy and the author of Shopper Marketing. He is a Research Fellow of Northwestern University’s Retail Analytics Council.

Shankar has consulting or executive teaching experience with organizations such as Allstate, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Colgate Palmolive, Deloitte, GlaxoSmithKline, Halliburton, Hewlett Packard, HSBC, Humana, IBM, Infosys, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Lucent Technologies, Mahindra, Marriott International, Medtronic, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, PepsiCo, PNC Bank, Philips, and Volvo. He has made several appearances on CNN, C-SPAN and Voice of America. He is/has been on many advisory boards, including, Alert Innovation and Ingenium Corporation. He has served as an expert witness in legal cases.

Edward J. Spiegel

The late Ted Spiegel was Professor Emeritus of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He began his career in direct marketing in 1957 working in the “family business” that mailed its first (now famous) Spiegel catalog in 1905. Through his leadership roles within the company, he helped to cement Spiegel Catalog’s reputation as one of America’s leading catalog marketers, changing what was originally a budget-minded, chain store-type catalog into an upscale “department store in print.” In 1987 Spiegel was instrumental in developing curriculum and establishing Medill’s graduate Direct Marketing Program – the first of its kind in the nation – where he expanded direct marketing as a discipline of study. He helped develop the Fourth Quarter Professional Residency for Academic Credit, which today is a key part of Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications program.

Prof. Spiegel worked as a consultant to businesses, government entities and nonprofits, was Founder and President of Spiegel Marketing Associates and a partner with the Callahan Group. His expertise in catalog marketing and business strategy helped a wide range of clients from Walt Disney to Reader’s Digest to the Library of Congress.

As a Professor Emeritus in Service, Ted Spiegel remained active in the Residency program at Medill. In 1989 he received a Doctor of Laws, Honorary Degree from National College of Education. His awards included the 1991 Charles Down Award as Chicago Direct Marketer of the Year and Marketing EDGE’s 1992 Edward Mayer Award for Education Leadership. In 2005 he was inducted into DMA’s Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. He served on the Board of Directors of Spiegel, Inc., Integrated Marketing Solutions, a subsidiary of Swiss Colony, Digital Impact, American Blind, CM Partners, and many more.

He authored along with Susan Jones, his partner at the Callahan Group, MARKETING CONVERGENCE-How the Leading Companies are Profiting from Integrated Online and Offline Marketing Strategies.