Chairman & CEO
Dr. V. Kumar (VK) is the Chairman and CEO of IMC International. He has extensive consulting experience working on Marketing Intelligence, Database Marketing, CRM Analytics, and Marketing Strategy projects for several Fortune 500 firms. VK is currently listed in Who’s Who Worldwide, for his leadership and achievement in the field of Marketing, and Who’s Who among Global Business Leaders for his leadership and quality work.
Dr. Kumar received the 2012 Outstanding Teacher Award at Georgia State University, 2007 Teaching Excellence Award, and 2007 MBA Teacher of the Year Award at the University of Connecticut,1996 Melcher Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching,1994 NationsBank Master Teaching Award and the Melcher Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for five years between 1990-94 and 1995-96 at the University of Houston. For the academic year 1991-92, Dr. Kumar also has been recognized as the recipient of the university of Houston Teaching Excellence Award. It also should be noted that throughout his career, Dr. Kumar has served as the dissertation chairman for 22 students.
Dr. Kumar is currently listed in Who’s Who Worldwide, for his leadership and achievement in the field of Marketing, and Who’s Who Among Global Business Leaders for his thought-leadership and quality work. He received the 2011 Outstanding Researcher Award at Georgia State University, the 2002-2003 Best Paper Award as well as the 2003 Research Excellence Award at the School of Business, University of Connecticut. He was also awarded the 1999 and 1997 Melcher Award for Faculty Excellence in Research, the 1994 College of Business Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award, the Kent Electronics Computer Research Excellence Award (1990-91) and the Melcher Faculty Research Excellence Award 1989, 1998 and 2000) at the University of Houston.
Dr. Kumar has several areas of special interest that include measuring Customer Lifetime Value, modeling diffusion of cellular services, analyzing scanner data, developing new models and methodologies to forecast sales and market share, and identifying market segments. He also specializes in the areas of E-Commerce, Direct Marketing, Total Quality Management, Customer Satisfaction, and International Marketing. He has published over 200 articles in leading academic journals including the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Operations Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, International Journal of Forecasting, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Direct Marketing, Marketing Letters, and the Journal of International Marketing, and in many other international journals such as Australasian Journal of Market Research and Revista de Estadistica as well as in the proceedings of many national conferences in the U.S and abroad, books and book chapters. He has won several awards for his research publications in scholarly journals including the Don Lehmann Award six times (in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2014, 2016 and in 2017) for the best paper published in the Journal of Marketing/Journal of Marketing Research in a 2-year period, the MSI/Paul H Root Award thrice for the 2003, 2005, and 2009 Journal of Marketing articles contributing to the best practice of marketing, the Robert Buzzell Award in 2010 for the best paper published by the Marketing Science Institute, the Davidson Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Retailing, the S. Tamer Cavusgil Award for the Best Paper published in the Journal of International Marketing twice (2015, 2017), the Outstanding Paper Award for the best paper published in Forecasting from the International Institute of Forecasters, and the Best Runner-Up Award for the paper published in 2005 in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. In 2012, VK was awarded the JM/Sheth Foundation Best Paper Award for his paper published in the Journal of Marketing that contributed to the Long-Term Impact of the practice of marketing, and in 2009, the Sheth Foundation Award for the best paper published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Dr. Kumar is a worldwide expert on marketing research methods and Customer Relationship Management Strategy. He has lectured on international Marketing Research in many continents. He has co-authored texts titled, Marketing Research, 12th edition; Global Marketing Research; Customer Relationship Management: Concepts, Strategies and Tools, Second edition; and Statistical Methods in CRM which were published in September 2012. His other books include Essentials of Marketing Research, 2nd edition, and International Marketing Research. His books have been translated in to many languages (Chinese, Portuguese, Macedonian, Russian, and Spanish) worldwide. His book titled “Managing Customers for Profit” was published by The Wharton School Publishing and has been translated into 6 different languages worldwide. Dr. Kumar also authored a book titled “Customer Lifetime Value: The Path to Profitability” (Now Publishers, The Netherlands) which was released in September 2008. His most recent book titled “Profitable Customer Engagement: Concepts, Metrics and Strategies” was released in 2013 by Sage Publications. In addition he has a new work titled “Marketing Research: A Global Outlook” which was just released.
Dr. Kumar has also had the privilege and the honor of being named as the Editor-In-Chief (EIC) of the Journal of Marketing, the number one ranked academic journal in the field of marketing. He is also an Associate Editor (AE) for the Journal of Marketing Research, and International Journal of Forecasting; Advisory Board member for the Journal of Retailing; and serves(d) on the Editorial Review Board of Marketing Science, the Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and the Journal of Business Research. In the past, he has also served as a Guest Editor for the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Researchand Guest AE for Marketing Science. He is also a reviewer for many journals including the Management Science, Journal of Strategic Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Advertising, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.
Dr. Kumar is a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA), the International Institute of Forecasters, the Academy of Marketing Science, and the INFORMS (and the TIMS College on Marketing). He has served as a Track Chair, and Faculty Consortium Chair in the Academy of Marketing Science Conferences. Dr. Kumar was selected to co-chair the American Marketing Association’s Summer Educators’ Conference at Chicago in August 1992. He served as the Director of the Doctoral Program in Marketing at the University of Houston from 1992 to 1997. Dr. Kumar has served as a judge for three consecutive years in the “Houston Awards for Quality” Program. He also served on the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association as a Senior Vice-President for Conferences and Research and as the Vice-President of International Activities. Dr. Kumar currently serves on the Insurance and Financial Services Related Task Force organized by the Hartford Chamber of Commerce and recently served on the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association as well its Knowledge Coalition Task Force, and the AMA Finance Committee. Dr. Kumar is currently the Vice President, Practice for the Institute for the Society of Marketing Science (ISMS), and has also served as the Chair of the first ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition in 2010.
Dr. Kumar has extensive consulting experience working on marketing research projects for companies including IBM, Comcast, HSBC, P&G, ING, Prudential, Wells Fargo, ICICI, Pitney Bowes, Chick-fil-A, BP/AMOCO, AOL, MGM Mirage, Polo Ralph Lauren, AllState, Home Depot, Equifax, PeopleSoft, Sigma Genosys, Houston Cellular, AT&T, Southwestern Bell, Exxon, Builders Square, American Airlines, Coca-Cola Foods, Channelview Bank, DuPont, First Interstate Bank, Houston Lighting and Power, GTE, San Jacinto Girls Scouts, Inc., Scientific Software Intercomp, Inc., Gallery Furniture, and Texas Children’s Hospital. Dr. Kumar has also directed marketing research projects for clients including Coca-Cola Foods, Compaq Computers, Baker-Hughes, Houston Northwest Medical Center, The Daily Cougar Newspaper, Arch Chemicals, IKON, Bristol Myers Squibb, ABB, etc. Dr. Kumar is an expert on working with customer databases to build efficient direct marketing and database marketing programs for Fortune 500 firms dealing with consumer and industrial products. He also builds models and develops marketing programs with the point-of-sale retail scanner data of grocery stores and supermarkets. Dr. Kumar also interacts with A. C. Nielsen and Information Resources, Inc. in analyzing large scanner databases of supermarkets. Dr. Kumar has also served as an expert witness in lawsuits related to market opportunities. He also served on the board of the business research division of one of the fastest growing advertising agencies in the United States of America for over five years and has also served on the Board of one of the Aditya Birla Group of companies.
Dr. Kumar has developed sophisticated statistical models and creative marketing strategies for solving marketing problems. Some of these models were implemented by IBM and P&G Asia-Pacific recently where they reported gains in profits of over 20 million and 40 million dollars respectively. In 2009, Prudential reported a gain of over 450 million dollars when implementing the Emotion Retirement Quotient Tool developed by Dr. Kumar and his colleague. He was recently recognized by the INFORMS Marketing Science Society for his work on Customer Lifetime Value based applications to IBM, and Marketing-Mix modeling based applications to P&G Asia Pacific. He also won the $100,000 Academic-Practitioner Challenge sponsored by ISBM-MSI and Northwestern University in 2006-07 for developing the most relevant and rigorous body of knowledge to solve B2B business problems. In 2010, Dr. Kumar was chosen as one of the winners of the Google-WPP marketing research award in the worldwide competition for his co-authored research on monetizing the customer influence in a social media channel. This body of work was implemented in an emerging market – India, for an Ice Cream Retailer – Hokey Pokey. This implementation of Marketing Science to Marketing Practice was selected as the winner of the 2011-2012 Gary L. Lilien ISMS-MSI Practice Prize.
Dr. Kumar has consistently been cited as one of the top five ranked scholars in marketing worldwide (Source: AMA SIG). He was selected as a recipient of the 2012 Paul D. Converse Award given for significant contributions to an area in the field of marketing. He has also been recognized with a total of 14 other Lifetime Achievement Awards: 4 Lifetime Contributions Awards from the AMA for advancing the Theory and Practice of Marketing Strategy, Theory and Practice of Marketing Research, and Retailing and B2B Marketing; lifetime recognition from the AMA Foundation for career contributions to Marketing; the lifetime award from the Institute of Study for Business Markets at Penn State University for career contributions in Business to Business Marketing; and the another lifetime achievement award (Robert B. Clarke Award) from the DMEF for contributions to Direct and Interactive Marketing. Additionally, in 2014 Dr. Kumar was named as the Innovation and Growth (iSIG) fellow at the School of Management at Fudan University in China. Recently, Dr. Kumar was presented with the 2015 AMS/Cutco Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science.
He was also recognized as a Marketing Guru by the IIT Alumni Association in 2006, and as a Distinguished Marketing Doctoral Alumni at the University of Texas at Austin. Recently, Dr. Kumar was conferred with the Bharat Gaurav (Prestige of India) Award, Glory of India Award, Pravasi Achievers’ Gold Medal, and the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award for demonstrating excellence in the chosen profession. A member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Dr. Kumar received his Bachelors in Engineering (with Honors) and Masters in Industrial Management (with Distinction) from the Indian Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Kumar has been selected as one of the 8 Legends in Marketing Worldwide. His scholarly contributions have been published in the Legends in Marketing Series as a 10-Volume Collection by the Sage Publications in 2012 with commentaries from scholars worldwide. Subsequently, the Chinese Ministry of Education awarded the Chang Jiang Scholar (2014 – present) honor to Dr. Kumar, the highest honor provided to an academic scholar worldwide. Dr. Kumar has been recognized as a Lee Kong Chian Fellow (2015-16) at Singapore Management University, Singapore, where he collaborated with researchers on futuristic topics. Recently, Dr. Kumar has been honored as the Senior Fellow, Indian School of Business, India, Fellow, Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, TAMU, College Station, TX, and inducted as a Fellow of the American Marketing Association in 2017.
