John Quelch

by Admin | Apr 13, 2013 | Board of Directors, Board of Thinkers

Co-Founder, and Member of Board of Directors, Board of Thinkers , Boston Global Forum.

John A. Quelch is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He holds a joint appointment at Harvard School of Public Health as Professor in Health Policy and Management.  He is also a fellow of the Harvard China Fund, a Member of the Harvard China Advisory Board and Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Between 2011 and 2013, Professor Quelch was Dean, Vice President and Distinguished Professor of International Management at CEIBS, China’s leading business school. Between 2001 and 2011, he was the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean at Harvard Business School. He served as Dean of London Business School from 1998 to 2001. Prior to 1998, he was the Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing and Co-Chair of the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School.

Professor Quelch is known for his teaching materials and innovations in pedagogy.  Over the past twenty-five years, his case studies have sold over 4 million copies, third highest in HBS history.  In 1995, he developed the first HBS interactive CD-ROM exercise (on Intel’s advertising budgeting process). In 1999, he developed and presented a series of twelve one hour programs on Marketing Management for the Public Broadcasting System.

Professor Quelch’s research focus is on global marketing and branding in emerging as well as developed markets. His current research projects address (a) understanding the contributions of marketing to the functioning of democracies and (b) formalizing appropriate marketing and customer metrics for periodic review by boards of directors. Professor Quelch is the author, co-author or editor of twenty-five books, including All Business Is Local (2011), Greater Good:  How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy (2008), Business Solutions for the Global Poor: Creating Social and Economic Value (2007), The New Global Brands (2006), Global Marketing Management (5th edition, 2006), The Global Market (2005), Cases in Advertising and Promotion Management (4th Edition, 1996) and The Marketing Challenge of Europe 1992 (2nd edition, 1991). He has published eighteen articles on marketing strategy issues in the Harvard Business Review, most recently “How To Market In A Downturn” (April 2009), and many more in other leading management journals such as  McKinsey Quarterly and Sloan Management Review.

Professor Quelch has served as an independent director of twelve publicly listed companies in the USA and UK.  He is currently a non-executive director of WPP and Alere. He served pro bono for eight years as Chairman of the Port Authority of Massachusetts. He is the Honorary Consul General of Morocco in New England and served previously as Chairman of the British-American Business Council of New England. Professor Quelch has been a consultant, seminar leader and speaker for firms, industry associations and government agencies in more than fifty countries. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council On Foreign Relations. He received the CBE for services to British business in 2011 and holds an honorary doctorate from Vietnam National University.

Professor Quelch was born in London, England, was educated at Exeter College, Oxford University (BA and MA), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (MBA), the Harvard School of Public Health (MS) and Harvard Business School (DBA). In addition to the UK and USA, he has lived in Australia and Canada.