Professor of Marketing and ISBM Executive Director

The Pennsylvania State University

Biography

Ralph A. Oliva is the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, and professor of marketing in the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. He is driving the growth of the ISBM as the leading academic center devoted to advancing knowledge and practice in Business-to-Business marketing worldwide. The ISBM is supported by sixty major firms, and a network of over 100 researchers, all focused on B-to-B.

Ralph is a regular columnist for Marketing Management magazine, and is active in executive education, as well as the Smeal MBA program, where he received the “Outstanding MBA Faculty Award” for 2001-2002. He teaches B-to-B Marketing, Strategic Brand Management, and Integrated Market Communications. His research focus is on tracking the major trends shaping business markets, as well as Business-to-Business brands and ingredient brands.

Before joining Penn State, Ralph spent 23 years in B-to-B and consumer marketing, and established a “Virtual University” for marketing at Texas Instruments. He has served as vice president of Market Communications and Design for TI worldwide, as well as leader of the TI Web team. He developed the “DLP” brand program for Texas Instruments (TI’s fi rst ingredient branding strategy) and worked on several landmark products.

Ralph holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in solid state physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a B.S. in physics from Fordham University.