LMU Marketing Professor Madhu Viswanathan has been named the 2021 recipient of the William L. Wilkie “Marketing for a Better World” Award, presented by the American Marketing Association (AMA). This prestigious award honors marketing thinkers who have significantly contributed to the understanding and appreciation for marketing’s potential to improve our world, and from whose work notable advances have ensued. Madhu will be honored at the AMA Winter Academic Conference in February.
“I am deeply honored to call LMU my home while receiving this recognition,” said Madhu. “The support and encouragement of my fellow faculty and colleagues means a lot to me.”
Madhu joined LMU in 2019 after serving on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for 29 years. He is considered a pioneer in the area of subsistence marketplaces, with a bottom-up approach to research, education and practice in low-income settings. He is also founder of the non-profit organization, the Marketplace Literacy Project.
“This is one of the highest awards a marketing scholar can receive and we are so excited for Madhu,” said Dayle Smith, dean of LMU College of Business Administration. “Madhu’s work with advancing subsistence marketplaces and helping develop marketplace literacy around the world in some of the poorest countries is legendary.”
Since arriving at LMU, Madhu has been instrumental in developing the “Business for Good” course, now required of all first-year business students. An immersive and interactive experience, this class involves major global challenges such as poverty and the environment, and brings out the role of business in addressing these challenges. Using models that Madhu developed, students design a business for good plan to launch a product for low-income customers in domestic or international markets while achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability.
Madhu has authored several books including Measurement Error and Research Design, Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces, Subsistence Marketplaces, and Bottom-Up Enterprise.
