Kimberly A. Whitler

Education: B.A., Eureka College; MBA, University of Arizona, Eller School of Business; M.S., Ph.D., Indiana University, Kelley School of Business

Kimberly A. Whitler is currently the Frank M. Sands Sr. Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. She is a board member of Kalon Aesthetics, is the outgoing chair of the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Foundation advisory board, and has served on the AMA board, serving on the Audit and Finance Committee.

Prior to her academic career, Whitler served nearly 20 years in general management, strategy, and chief marketing officer roles within the CPG and retailing industries, managing global, U.S., and Eastern European-based businesses. Most of her career was at Procter & Gamble, with subsequent roles as the GM of the Breakfast Division for Aurora Foods, the CMO of David’s Bridal, the country’s leading bridal apparel retailer, and as an officer of PetSmart, the largest pet specialty retailer.

Whitler blends practitioner experience with her academic research to help boards, CEOs, and CMOs leverage marketing to build firm and individual advantage. She is the author of "Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value,” named a “best strategy book,” and is the co-author of the book “Athlete Brands: How to Benefit from Your Name, Image, & Likeness.” She has published over 90 articles in top academic and practitioner outlets, including Journal of Marketing (JM), Academy of Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), Journal of Management, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Directors & Boards, and The Conference Board Directors’ Notes. She serves on the editorial review boards of JM, JAMS, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

In 2023, Whitler’s research (“When and How Board Members with Marketing Experience Facilitate Firm Growth”) received the Journal of Marketing’s Sheth Foundation Award, which honors the best paper that has made long-term contributions to the field of marketing. Her research won the 2017 MSI Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award; was a finalist for the 2018 Journal of Marketing's MSI/Paul H. Root Award; was a finalist for the 2019 S. Tamer Cavusgil Award (“Marketing Capabilities in International Marketing"); won the 2020 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Sheth Foundation Award given annually to the best research published in the journal ("Research in Marketing Strategy"); and was a finalist for the 2022 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Sheth Foundation Award (“Upper Echelons and Marketing”). In 2024, Whitler was honored with the Distinguished Scholars Award from UVA.

Whitler has worked with several organizations, including the FBI, The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, CEO-CMO Summit, Hearst Corporation, PGAN Large Cap CEO Forum, E. & J. Gallo, U.S. Department of Defense Fellows Program, Gartner, Capital One, AARP, Edward Jones, Sewell, among others. As a Forbes Senior Contributor, Whitler’s articles garnered over 5 million views, and she has been named a “Top Influencer of CMOs" and a “Favorite Professor of Top MBA Students” in Poets & Quants and has won Darden's "Morton Award" twice for the professor who best fostered the student Morton Award recipient’s leadership ability.

Whitler has been interviewed or quoted over 10,000 times in media outlets, earning over 23 billion impressions, with a media value of over $140 million, including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Chronicle, Reuters, BBC, NBC, ABC, the Associated Press, and a variety of other national and international media outlets. She attended the U.S. Air Force Academy, received a B.A. in psychology and business administration from Eureka College, an MBA from the University of Arizona, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Indiana University.