Dr. Rajiv Grover is the Dean of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics and the holder of the Sales and Marketing Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis. Prior to his appointment as the Dean, he was the holder of the Terry Chair of Excellence and the Head of the Marketing Department at the University of Georgia. As the Dean, he is committed to satisfying the needs of the business, not-for-profit, and governmental communities, who he considers to be his customers, by supplying excellent students, who he considers to be his products. Based on this philosophy, the faculty and staff of the Fogelman College have been able to introduce several new, creative and innovative programs at a rapid pace at the Fogelman College. The College has been able to reengineer and develop curricula, course content and delivery, funding mechanisms, processes and policies, and communication vehicles. Dean Grover believes in the holistic development of students that encompasses intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and societal development and has set forth systems to achieve those. In the process of developing students on all these dimensions, the College has engaged the campus community; e.g., other schools and colleges, student services, and athletics; business and political communities; chamber of commerce; and other economic and social NGOs of the city of Memphis and the county. Dean Grover strives to motivate and inspire individuals both within the college and the university and beyond to reach higher goals by believing in themselves and working for a better tomorrow while synergistically managing the PR function and the media to promote the college and its programs.
Some of the noteworthy achievements by the faculty and staff in the last four years have been: 1. Fund-raising: a) by devising creative means (not including traditional annual giving) to overcome the unique challenges posed by the economic and environmental setting to garner $2.25 Million annually for executing the vision and strategic plan; and b) by energizing external community such that donations, for example, the pledge for $1.25 Million for the Avron B. Fogelman Center for Professional Career Development and for the Fogelman Promise activities and the $2 Million Martha and Robert Fogelman Chair of Excellence in Sustainable Real Estate, reached the highest levels across all colleges and in recent history of the Fogelman College. 2. Launching innovative academic programs: a) the Customer-Driven MBA Program wherein companies sponsor students for the full-time MBA program and commit to 2-years of employment and students commit to customized courses and an internship; b) the Entrepreneurship MBA Program that is designed to start companies rather than just offer courses; c) the Online MBA Program and Online UG Courses for all Business Majors; and d) the Joint Pharm-D/MBA Program and the Health Pharmacy EMBA Program. 3. Instituting the holistic development of undergraduate students: through a) the newly established Avron B. Fogelman Center for Professional Career Development; b) the Fogelman Promise Initiative consisting of the 4Cs, Fogelman Fit, Etiquette, Toastmasters, Know Good – Do Good – Thrive, Professionalism First!, Fogelman Feeds, and Fogelman Promise Day programs; and c) re-establishing the FCBE Honors Program that reached a 100 students in the first year itself. 4. Revamping MBA curricula: a) by including soft-skill courses - much before they were talked about, abolishing territorial pre-requisites and required core courses, and introducing flexibility for elective tracks; and b) in the Executive MBA Program, by eliminating Friday classes and making it a self-reimbursing one through an innovation project course which nets the employing company $100,000. 5. Creating new channels and forums of communication, e.g., Fogelman Focus, Fogelman Flash e-Newsletter, Fogelman Features and several types of stakeholder meetings. 6. Establishing the E-Learning initiative to keep up with the new generation. 7. Totally revitalizing external relations to form energetic supportive boards at the departmental and college level and to compellingly engage executives in enrichment activities for students. 8. Receiving AACSB Accreditation for both Business and Accounting. 9. Leading the College to be ranked by USNEWS & World Report for the first time in history.
Dr. Grover has held academic positions at Penn State, University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Georgia. He has been a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins, Duke and Stanford. He has also held corporate positions including the one of being a Senior VP at a Silicon Valley start-up that was engaged in software development in the e-commerce area.
Dr. Grover’s area of expertise is marketing with specific capabilities in the interface of marketing research and marketing strategy. His accomplishments span research, teaching, executive development, editorships, consulting, expert witness engagements and authorship. He has published in top academic journals such as Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Marketing and has been on the editorial board of Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Marketing.
He has authored the book Theory and Simulation of Market-Focused Management (Dryden) and was the founding editor of The Journal of Market Focused Management. He has edited The Handbook of Marketing Research: Uses, Misuses, and Future Advances (Sage). He is currently leading a group of top scholars to create a graduate level Marketing Management textbook to be published by Prentice Hall.
Dr. Grover’s notable achievements in research, teaching and administration include:
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the prestigious O'Dell award for the best paper in the Journal of Marketing Research
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the Hugh O. Nourse Outstanding MBA Teacher Award
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the Lifetime Achievement Award in Marketing Research from Frost & Sullivan
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the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title for the Handbook of Marketing Research
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the first ever ranking of the Marketing Department at the University of Georgia in The US News and World Report for two years in a row (20th/21st ranks – 2005 and 2006)
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the inclusion of Fogelman College of Business & Economics to the category of Tier I .
He has consulted with and conducted executive education programs for leading organizations such as AT&T, ALCOA, KPMG, PNC Bank, PPG, Texas Instruments, Citibank, IBM, Microsoft, Heinz, HP, and Eli Lily.
Dr. Grover received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts, MBA from Indian Institute of Management and Electronics Engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology.
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