C. T. Bauer College of Business Professor Michael Ahearne is an internationally regarded leader in sales education research, recognized as a pioneer in the field for more than 20 years and recently honored as the most cited sales scholar globally by ScholarGPS.
In addition to teaching in the college’s Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship, Ahearne is the Research Director of the college’s Stephen Stagner Sales Excellence Institute and was previously honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Marketing.
With artificial intelligence and other shifts in the marketing landscape, Ahearne shares his experience with sales and how the institute continues to lead the way in scholarly research.
Untraditional Introduction
After finishing a career as a pitcher for the Montreal Expos in the 80s, Ahearne was unsure of what to study at university. Deciding to follow his academic strengths, Ahearne enrolled in a dual math and business degree program.
Through this early coursework, his passion for research was born.
“I loved my market research class,” Ahearne said. “It was fantastic because I got to apply math and statistics to actual marketing problems. My professor really encouraged me to do my Ph.D.”
Once accepted into a Ph.D. program at Indiana University, Ahearne dove in headfirst, doing math modeling problems and developing new research methods. After a faculty member approached Ahearne about helping a partner pharmaceutical company evaluate their consumer data set, he hit a turning point in his career.
“I took some time off from my Ph.D., which was very unusual at that time, and I absolutely fell in love with using data to solve sales-related problems,” he said. “I started to think that there were all kinds of great research problems that I could be solving.”
Shaped by his motivation for marketing, Ahearne returned to school and completed his Ph.D. program. He went on to start a career in academia.
Focus on Research
When Ahearne joined the Bauer College faculty in 2004, he said the sales program was focused on student education. In the years to come, the institute added two additional priorities to its structure — research and executive development.
Ahearne spent his time focused on conducting research in top academic journals and working with doctoral students studying sales.
