Marketing Division

Letter From the Chair

Kinshuk Jerath, Chair of the Marketing Department

The Marketing Division at Columbia Business School brings together a team of approximately 25 full-time faculty members, 25 adjunct faculty members, 20 PhD students, 20 Master of Science students, and 6 research and administrative staff.

Our world leading full-time faculty conduct cutting edge academic research, developing methodologies and producing insights that are useful for industry and policy makers. The field of marketing is interdisciplinary—it intersects with social sciences such as psychology, sociology and economics, as well as data sciences, statistics, computer science and operations research. We study a wide range of topics including the psychology of consumer behavior, the strategic interactions between firms and consumers, marketing analytics, innovation, and customer relationship management. The Columbia Marketing Division offers a rich and active intellectual environment hosting seminars, conferences and other events, and has been the birthplace of groundbreaking ideas, such as the theory of buyer behavior and customer lifetime value.

We offer core and elective courses that are relevant not only to students interested in careers in traditional and digital marketing, but also to those interested in brand and product management, entrepreneurship, corporate innovation, consulting, media, technology, and healthcare management. We teach courses on customer management, product management, marketing strategy, sales, innovation, pricing, branding, digital marketing, retailing, media, behavioral economics, consulting, and several related domains. Offering a robust portfolio of courses is enabled by our exceptional strong adjunct faculty.

In addition to teaching in the MBA and EMBA programs, we host a successful PhD program. Our graduating PhD students typically pursue academic careers. Our recent alums have received offers from top Schools such as Wharton, Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, London Business School, INSEAD, and Carnegie Mellon University.

We are responsible for a Master of Science in Marketing, a small elite program that teaches the latest tools coming straight from academic research to future practitioners.

Finally, we administer a popular Master of Science in Business Analytics program together with our colleagues from the Decisions, Risk and Operations Division and from the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department (in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences).

We invite you to further browse our website and reach out to us!

News and Awards

Hortense Fong, 2021 MSI Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition, for her submission, “A Theory-Based Interpretable Deep Learning Architecture for Music Emotion.

”Toubia, Olivier, and Andrew T. Stephen. "Intrinsic vs. image-related utility in social media: Why do people contribute content to twitter?." Marketing Science 32.3 (2013): 368-392.

Alisa Wu, a Bernstein Center Doctoral Research Grant for her project titled “Are females more emotional? Gender stereotypes and how to overcome them,”

Lan Luo, for his project titled “Decomposing the Impact of Gender on Facial Discrimination: Using GANs for Modular Stimuli.”

Melanie Brucks for receiving a joint grant from the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office to pursue a project entitled, "The Great Equalizer: Does Virtual Interaction Reduce Gender Disparities in Classroom Participation?"

Oded Netzer for also receiving a Sanford C. Bernstein Center Faculty Research Grant to pursue a project entitled, " Diversity in U.S. Advertising in Times of Racial Unrest."

Marketing Annual Magazine Cover Page

What was new in the Marketing Division in 2022?

Read about it in our annual newsletter!

New Faculty

The Marketing Division is pleased to welcome Professor Mohamed Hussein

Dr. Mohamed Hussein is a faculty member in the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School. Using survey experiments, conjoint analysis, and natural language processing techniques, he studies the psychology of persuasion, politics, and the intersection of the two. Dr. Hussein’s research has been published in top-tier academic journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Personality and Social Psychology Review.

Before joining Columbia, Dr. Hussein earned his Ph.D. in marketing from Stanford GSB. At Stanford, he was chosen to be a member of the inaugural cohort of the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship and was awarded the Diversifying Academia Recruiting Excellence Fellowship. Before Stanford, he worked in economic consulting at Analysis Group and studied economics and mathematics at Middlebury College.

See Dr. Hussein's Profile

In the Media

Christian Science Monitor

April 16, 2025

Why Trump’s ‘Madman Theory’ Tactics Could Run Aground Amid Trade Reversals

Highlighted by Columbia Business School, this media piece showcases Topics and Areas of Expertise about our esteemed faculty. The content is specifically curated from the publication that showcased the mentioned faculty and/or research, emphasizing its contributions in various fields. The featured Topics and Areas of Expertise reflects the school's commitment to sharing valuable insights and knowledge.

Mentioned Faculty

Michael Morris

Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership: Management Division

RTInsights

April 15, 2025

We’ll Soon Find out if Digital Twins Can Replace Humans in Market Research

Mentioned Faculty

Olivier Toubia

Glaubinger Professor of Business: Marketing Division

TechCrunch

April 12, 2025

The xAI–X Merger Is a Good Deal — if You’re Betting on Musk’s Empire

Mentioned Faculty

Dan Wang

Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise in the Faculty of Business: Management Division

Co-Director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change: Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change

Forbes

April 7, 2025

How CSR Activities Reduce Turnover - and Why Men Stand to Benefit More Than Women

In a recent Forbes article published by the London School of Economics, Vanessa Burbano, Associate Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, is recognized for her pioneering research on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and employee retention.The article, titled "How CSR Activities Reduce Turnover—And Why Men Stand to Benefit More Than Women," highlights Burbano’s findings that employees are more likely to stay with companies that engage in CSR efforts aligned with their personal values. Her research also uncovers a gender disparity in the retention effects of CSR, with male employees reporting stronger job satisfaction and reduced turnover intent when their employer engages in socially responsible activities.Burbano’s work continues to inform how organizations can strategically align purpose with performance to strengthen workforce engagement and loyalty.

Mentioned Faculty

Vanessa Burbano

Donald C. Waite III Associate Professor of Social Enterprise: Management Division

Irish Independent

April 3, 2025

Real Health Podcast: Busy and Wrecked with Dermot Whelan

Mentioned Faculty

Silvia Bellezza

Associate Professor of Business: Marketing Division

CBS News

April 2, 2025

Tesla Sales Drop 13% from Last Year, Signaling Trouble for Elon Musk

Mentioned Faculty

Michael Morris

Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership: Management Division

Research

Better Innovation for a Better World

Authors: Olivier Toubia

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of Marketing

We aim to stimulate discussion on how innovation research within marketing can use a better world (BW) perspective to help innovation become a driver of positive change in the world. In this "Challenging the Boundaries" series paper, we hope to provide purposeful research opportunities for scholars seeking to bridge innovation research with the BW movement. We frame our discussion with four areas of innovation research in marketing that are particularly relevant to BW objectives.

Authors: Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer, and Julian Runge

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: International Journal of Research in Marketing

One of the most crucial aspects and significant levers that gaming companies possess in designing digital games is setting the level of difficulty, which essentially regulates the user’s ability to progress within the game. This aspect is particularly significant in free-to-play (F2P) games, where the paid version often aims to enhance the player’s experience and to facilitate faster progression.

Authors: Nicolas Padilla, Eva Ascarza, and Oded Netzer

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Journal Article

Journal: Quantitative Marketing and Economics

We introduce a probabilistic machine learning model that fuses customer click-stream data and purchase data within and across journeys. This approach addresses the critical business need for leveraging first-party data (1PD), particularly in environments with infrequent purchases, which are characterized by minimal or no prior purchase history.

Authors: Oded Netzer, Peter Ebbes, and Tammo Bijmolt

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Chapter

Book: Advance Techniques and Methods to Model Markets

Authors: Bernd Schmitt and Shu Zhang

Date: Forthcoming

Format: Chapter

Book: Next Practices in Marketing: Brand Management

Ideas

Marketing, Media and Technology, Technology

Date: January 08, 2020

Marketing, Media and Technology, Technology

Julie DeTraglia: On the Front Lines of the Streaming Wars

For Julie DeTraglia (VP, Head of Research and Insights, Hulu; BRITE ’20 Speaker), the most competitive year yet in the streaming wars presents an opportunity for Hulu to innovate boldly and stay true to their user-based approach.

Read more about Julie DeTraglia: On the Front Lines of the Streaming Wars about Julie DeTraglia: On the Front Lines of the Streaming Wars

Marketing

Type: Brand Talk
Date: February 08, 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as gravely ill patients filled the wards of Mount Sinai’s hospitals, concurrent crises of fear, anxiety, and misinformation about the coronavirus also took hold in the general populace.

Marketing

The Importance of Team Agility in Uncertain Times: Karen Wish ’94, VP and CMO of Mount Sinai Hospital Group and Network

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians and scientists quickly became the world’s most trusted sources of information on the pandemic. In this talk at the Future of Marketing Leadership Conference, learn how Karen Wish ’94 (VP and CMO, Mount Sinai Hospital Group and Network) led her team at Mount Sinai to get the truth and consistent messaging across to patients, staff, and the general public when they needed it most.