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Coming to the Table
For 22 Years Atlanta’s CMOs Have Reaped Rewards
from Robinson’s Marketing RoundTable
by Rhonda Mullen
Ken Bernhardt - Taylor E. Little, Jr.
Professor of Marketing - had a short-term
problem and went looking for a short-term
solution. He needed to fund moving
expenses as part of a recruitment package
for several potential marketing faculty at
the Robinson College. But the state didn’t
fund moving expenses, and without them,
he couldn’t get the faculty he wanted.
These 22 years later, Bernhardt’s solution
is going strong. That idea was a Marketing
RoundTable, made up of an invitation-only
list of top marketing executives in Atlanta
who pay dues for the chance to enhance
their professional development, network
with other senior marketing professionals,
and forge closer relationships between the
university and business community.
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Members find the group valuable for
several reasons. Shelia Weidman, current
roundtable chair and senior vice
president of communications, government
and public affairs at Georgia-Pacific, says
national experts keep her up to date on
developments in her field. “I get exposed
to strong subject matter right here in
Atlanta at a set time that’s convenient and
cost-effective,” she says.
Many members have participated on the
roundtable for years - even a few charter
members, like Chick-fil-A senior vice
president of marketing Steve Robinson.
Several roundtable presentations on the
evolution of customer listening and putting
metrics around brand performance “have
come back to Chick-fil-A and helped us
think how we are measuring,” he says.
Jeffrey Cohen, VP and general manager
of Meda Consumer Healthcare, has
represented 30 product lines - from snack
foods to automotive products - during
his career. He appreciates the ability to
meet with peers in a setting without
competition. Members of the roundtable
are not allowed to come from the same
industry, and if someone joins a company
that is in competition with a current
member, he or she has to resign from
the roundtable. “It’s great to have an
environment where we can speak freely,”
Cohen says.
Networking has proven almost as valuable
as professional development. “When
we started the group, we found that
the members tended to know everyone
in their own industry but none of their
counterparts in other major companies
in Atlanta,” says Bernhardt. “Now they’ve
formed strong bonds and can ask the
questions that can really help them in their
day-to-day work - questions like, which do
you use for this or that, or how much do
you pay your marketing director?”
Steven Rosenberg, director of business
development at Neenah Paper, has
maintained his membership in the roundtable through changes in companies and
positions. One reason, he says, is that “it
feels good to be part of an organization
that does good for GSU and the
community.”
Membership dues have funded faculty
research for 21 years in the form of grants
to the tune of almost $450,000; helped
endow one chair and five professorships
in the marketing department; and helped
support faculty travel. They’ve also
supported student scholarships, including
35 awards to outstanding minority
students in marketing, and built a $120,000
scholarship endowment.
Many of those scholarships are made
possible by the annual MAX Awards, a
competition that recognizes marketing
innovation and is presented by the Atlanta
Business Chronicle, Robinson’s department
of marketing, and the Marketing RoundTable. Every January, roundtable
members judge the best new marketing
innovations developed in the state in the
previous year. They uniformly say it is a
highlight of the year.
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Then there are the career benefits to
students, who have interned and even
landed permanent employment with the
companies of roundtable members.
“Georgia State is just two blocks from
Georgia-Pacific, and Ken has been sending
wonderful students my way to work as
marketing interns,” says Weidman.
Other students have gotten a chance to
solve real-life challenges for companies
represented on the roundtable. When HoneyBaked Ham was evaluating its
catering, lunch and core holiday business
lines, it asked three teams of graduate
marketing students to recommend
strategies to increase sales. After the
presentations, the company CEO’s first
response was, “I ask that any of you who
are looking for a job to send me a resume.”
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Copyright © 2011 J. Mack Robinson College of Business/Georgia State University
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