GaryArmstrong isCrist W. Blackwell Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Kenan-FlaglerBusiness School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holdsundergraduate and master''s degrees in business from Wayne State University inDetroit, and he received his PhD in marketing from Northwestern University. Dr.Armstrong has contributed numerous articles to leading business journals. As aconsultant and researcher, he has worked with many companies on marketingresearch, sales management, and marketing strategy. But ProfessorArmstrong''s first love has always been teaching. His long-held BlackwellDistinguished Professorship is the only permanent endowed professorship fordistinguished undergraduate teaching at the University of North Carolina atChapel Hill.

He has been very active in the teaching and administration ofKenan-Flagler''s undergraduate program. His administrative posts have includedChair of Marketing, Associate Director of the Undergraduate Business Program,Director of the Business Honors Program, and many others. Through the years, hehas worked closely with business student groups and has received several UNCcampus-wide and Business School teaching awards. He is the only repeatrecipient of the school''s highly regarded Award for Excellence in UndergraduateTeaching, which he received three times. Most recently, Professor Armstrongreceived the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, thehighest teaching honor bestowed by the 16-campus University of North Carolinasystem. Philip Kotler is Professor Emeritus ofMarketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He receivedhis master''s degree at the University of Chicago and his PhD at M.I.

T., both ineconomics. Dr. Kotler is the co-author of Marketing Management (Pearson),now in its 16th edition and the most widely used marketing textbook in graduateschools of business worldwide. He has authored more than 60 other successfulbooks and has published more than 150 articles in leading journals. He is theonly three-time winner of the coveted Alpha Kappa Psi award for the best annualarticle in the Journal of Marketing . ProfessorKotler was named the first recipient of four major awards: the DistinguishedMarketing Educator of the Year Award and the William L. Wilkie "Marketing for aBetter World" Award, both given by the American Marketing Association; thePhilip Kotler Award for Excellence in Health Care Marketing presented by theAcademy for Health Care Services Marketing; and the Sheth Foundation Medal forExceptional Contribution to Marketing Scholarship and Practice.

He is a chartermember of the Marketing Hall of Fame, was voted the first Leader in MarketingThought by the American Marketing Association, and was named the Founder ofModern Marketing Management in the Handbook of Management Thinking. Hisnumerous other major honors include the Sales and Marketing ExecutivesInternational Marketing Educator of the Year Award; the European Association ofMarketing Consultants and Trainers Marketing Excellence Award; the CharlesCoolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award; and the Paul D. Converse Award, givenby the American Marketing Association to honor "outstanding contributions toscience in marketing." A recent Forbes survey ranks ProfessorKotler in the top 10 of the world''s most influential business thinkers. And ina recent Financial Times poll of 1,000 senior executivesacross the world, Professor Kotler was ranked as the fourth "most influentialbusiness writer/guru" of the 21st century. He is considered by many to be the"father of modern marketing." Dr. Kotlerhas served as chairman of the College on Marketing of the Institute ofManagement Sciences, a director of the American Marketing Association, and atrustee of the Marketing Science Institute.

He has consulted with many major USand international companies in the areas of marketing strategy and planning,marketing organization, and international marketing. He has traveled andlectured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, advisingcompanies and governments about global marketing practices and opportunities. Marc OliverOpresnik is a professor of Marketing and Management and Member of the Board ofDirectors at St. Gallen Management Institute, a leading international businessschool. In addition, he is Professor of Business Administration at theTechnische Hochschule Lübeck as well as a visiting professor to internationaluniversities such as the Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge,Regent''s University London, and the East China University of Science andTechnology (ECUST) in Shanghai. He has 10 years of experience working in seniormanagement and marketing positions for Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd. Dr.

Opresnik is the author of numerous articles and books. Along withKevin Keller and Phil Kotler, he is co-author of the German edition ofMarketing Management, the "Bible of Marketing." In addition, he is co-editorand member of the editorial board of several international journals such as TransnationalMarketing Journal, International Journal of New Technologies in Science andEngineering, and International Journal of Management & SocialSciences . In March 2014, he was appointed Chief Research Officer at Kotler ImpactInc., the internationally operating company of Phil Kotler. In addition, he wasappointed "Chief Executive Officer" of the Kotler Business Programme, aninitiative to enhance marketing education worldwide via online and offlinelearning with Pearson as global educational partner. As president of hisconsulting firm Opresnik Management Consulting, he works for numerousinstitutions, governments and international corporations, including Google,Coca-Cola, McDonald''s, SAP, Shell International Petroleum, Co. Ltd.

, Procter& Gamble, Unilever, L''Oréal, Bayer, BASF, and adidas. More than a quarterof a million people have benefited professionally and personally from hisinsights and learned from him when he served as a coach in seminars onmarketing, sales and negotiation and as a speaker at conferences all over theworld including locations such as St. Gallen, Berlin, Houston, Moscow, KualaLumpur, London, Paris, Dubai, and Tokyo.