BYU Professor Gary Rhoads Joins Enterprise Engagement Alliance as Academic Advisor

The Enterprise Engagement Alliance has announced that Gary Rhoads, currently the Stephen M. Covey Professor of Marketing and Associate Director of the Entrepreneurship Center at Brigham Young University, will join the EEA curriculum group as Academic Advisor, effective immediately. Professor Rhoads will advise the EEA on its curriculum development on Enterprise Engagement for businesses, as well as the creation of an education program for students at various levels.

“I believe that the field of engagement is entering an exciting stage of development,” says Rhoades. “Engagement may be to the 21st century what advertising was in the last century in terms of impact on business. I’m eager to contribute to the formalization of the framework and best practices being developed by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance, and to help bring this to the widest possible audience of businesses and students.”

The Enterprise Engagement Curriculum Committee is currently comprised of EEA Director Allan Schweyer; Rodger Stotz of Delta Qi Consulting; Bruce Bolger of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance; and Melanie Lewis, most recently Director of Sales Engagement at AstraZeneca.

Recipient of various Teaching Excellence awards, Professor Rhoads has taught for universities and companies in Europe and the United States. He has worked as a sales/customer engagement consultant for numerous companies worldwide, including DuPont, BorgWarner Inc., AT&T, U.S. West, Prudential, Discover Card, American Express, Chevron Corporation, 3M International, OCE, Bull Computers and LG Corporation. He has also been a guest speaker at the Marketing Science Institute, Netherlands Sales Management Association, Institute for International Research and International Quality & Productivity Center.

Professor Rhoads sits on a number of advisory boards of start-up companies and is the Co-Founder and past Chairman of the Board of Allegiance, a provider of predictive technology and services for measuring and managing employee and customer engagement. He was also a founding partner of Direct1.com, a firm that provides Internet technology to implement real-time early-warning feedback systems for Fortune 500 firms. Direct1 was sold to Computer Science Corp (CSC) in 1999.

As an active researcher in sales and front-line employee performance, his work focuses on factors that influence employee performance, engagement, turnover, burnout and service quality. In marketing management, his interests include developing smart technology for effectively managing customer and employee retention, loyalty, and engagement. Rhoads has published articles in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Market Research Society, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Retailing, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Marketing Science Institute, and various AMA Proceedings. He is the co-author of two entrepreneurship books: Becoming a Plus-One Leader (2006) and Boom Start: Super Laws of Successful Entrepreneur (2009) that highlight the best leadership and marketing practices of successful entrepreneurs.

“Gary’s dedication to the field of engagement and academic credentials, combined with his hands-on experience at Allegiance and other companies in this emerging field, will make him an ideal contributor to our efforts to establish Enterprise Engagement as a formal business discipline,” says Bruce Bolger, EEA Managing Director. “We’re thrilled to have him on board.”