Global Marketer

Stephen Anderson’s winning look at supporting entrepreneurship

Marketing Assistant Professor Stephen Anderson is helping entrepreneurs worldwide. Anderson was honored by the American Marketing Association with its 2021 Robert J. Lavidge Global Marketing Research Award, given to a practitioner or educator “who has devised and successfully implemented a research or insight procedure that has practical implications for use by others.” Anderson’s groundbreaking work uses multiyear field experiments — akin to randomized control and treatment groups in pharmaceutical trials — to study what works for growing companies.

“I design and test interventions from marketing skills to virtual coaching to fin tech solutions,” Anderson explains. He tracks hundreds of businesses, measuring improvement in such metrics as sales and profits. He travels across Africa and Latin America, immersing himself to better understand the local context and day-to-day challenges of entrepreneurs. It’s a passion that began during his doctoral studies at London Business School after his mother’s unexpected death. “I started taking development economics courses and thought, ‘Maybe I can combine my own experiences growing up in poverty and my research to have a bigger impact in the world.’”

Story by Jeremy M. Simon

This article appeared in the spring 2022 issue of McCombs magazine. Click on the link to see the full issue.