Gerard Tellis, holder of the Jerry and Nancy Neely Chair in American Enterprise, professor of marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business and director of the USC Marshall Center for Global Innovation, will add another accolade to the long list of awards he has received in the field of marketing: the 2012 Paul D. Converse Award.

The American Marketing Association established the Converse award in 1946 to honor “those who have pioneered in developing the theory of marketing and the advancement toward science in marketing.” Fortune magazine described the recipients of the award as constituting the “Marketing Hall of Fame.”

“The Paul D. Converse award recognizes outstanding research a decade or two after it was done,” Tellis said. “Given time, the judges are better able to evaluate the contribution. So I truly value this award.”

Given every four years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the award seeks to acknowledge enduring contributions to marketing. Therefore, only work generally available to marketing academics and students for at least five years is considered.

A national jury of scholars and practitioners from universities, business and government, including the editorial boards of major academic marketing journals, determines the recipients by nominating the works for consideration and then rating them.

An expert in innovation, advertising, global market entry and new product growth, Tellis has published more than 100 articles and four books, including Will and Vision: How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets.

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