Gregory Carpenter's research and teaching focuses on understanding how firms thrive by succeeding with consumers. His current work on marketing strategy focuses on understanding the role of customers and brands in the success of luxury firms, which are now among the most valuable companies in the world. Recent award-winning work examines how firms that face serious challenges create a more customer-focused culture leading to renewed success. He is extending this line of research, summarized in Resurgence: The Four Stages of Market-Focused Reinvention (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), by exploring how health-care systems shift from a physician-centric approach to a more consumer-centric perspective to delivery of health care. He previously co-edited the Handbook of Marketing Strategy (Edward Elgar, 2012), and Readings on Market-Driving Strategies: Toward a New Concept of Competitive Advantage (Addison Wesley, 1997).
Appearing in leading academic journals, such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, and Psychometrika, his research has been recognized by the The American Marketing Association with the William F. O'Dell Award, the Paul E. Green Award, the Donald R. Lehmann Award, and the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award.
Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and National Public Radio have featured his research, and it has been cited in arguments before the United States Supreme Court. Recognized by BusinessWeek as one of a small group of outstanding faculty in its Guide to the Best Business School, he was voted Outstanding Professor of the Year Award by the Kellogg Managers' Program, and he received the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award.
He teaches an elective in the MBA program, Luxury Strategy, and he is the academic director of three Kellogg executive program: Kellogg's Chief Marketing Officer Program, an in-person program that helps prepare people for a demanding enterprise-wide leadership role; the Chief Marketing Officer Certificate Program, an on-line set of courses for aspiring CMOw, and The Customer-Focused Organization, which explores how organization become more sucessful by embracing the customer perspective. He co-chairs the Marketing Leadership Summit, bringing thought leaders together each fall to explore the future of marketing.
He often speaks and advises firms. Past and current clients include Bacardi, Carnival Corporation, Champage Louis Roederer, Coca-Cola, Cunard Lines, Diageo, Dow Chemical, Federal Reserve Bank, Government of Mexico, General Electric, Harley-Davidson, Health Management Academy, Novartis, PepsiCo, Pfizer, SC Johnson, Target, Unilever, and Visa.
A former Academic Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute, he served as a member of the board of advisors of Hamilton Consultants, and a member of the advisory board of Terlato Wine Group. He was named a Chevalier in the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne for his contribution to champagne.
Previously on the faculty of the UCLA, Columbia University, and the Yale School of Management, he received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University, and M.B.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University.
