NACS Marketing Leadership Program at Kellogg

Tim Calkins helps people and organizations build strong brands; he is a marketing professor, author, speaker and consultant.

He is Associate Chair of the Marketing Department and Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He teaches courses including Marketing Strategy, Biomedical Marketing and Strategic Marketing Decisions.

Tim is a prolific author. His latest book, How to Wash a Chicken – Mastering the Business Presentation (Page Two, 2018), was named Top Business Book by the IndieReader Discovery Awards, and received the Gold Prize for Business and Economics from the Foreword Indie Book of the Year Awards.

Tim also wrote Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Earlier, Tim wrote Breakthrough Marketing Plans (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 and 2008).

Tim has received numerous awards for his teaching. He won the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, the top teaching award at Kellogg, in 2006 and 2013, making him one of a small number of people to have won it twice. He was a finalist again in 2022 and 2023. In 2018, he received the Top Professor Award from Germany’s Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA Program. He received the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award in 2008 and 2022. In 2016, Poets & Quants included him on its list “Favorite MBA Professors.”

Tim maintains a blog on brand strategy: Building Strong Brands. Inc. included the blog on its list of “Six Blogs That Can Teach You More Than an MBA.” You can find the blog at www.timcalkins.com

In addition to teaching at Kellogg, Tim works with major corporations on strategy and branding issues. His recent clients include Lundbeck, Abbott, Caterpillar and AbbVie.

Tim began his career at the consulting firm Booz Allen and Hamilton. He joined the marketing team at Kraft Foods in 1991. During his almost 11 years at Kraft, he led brands including Miracle Whip, Taco Bell, Parkay and DiGiorno. He was responsible for the launch of more than two dozen new products.

He received his BA from Yale and his MBA from Harvard. Tim lives in Chicago with his wife and three children.

Steven Franconeri is leading scientist, teacher, and speaker on visual thinking, visual communication, and the psychology of data visualization. He is a Professor of Psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences at Northwestern, Director of the Northwestern Cognitive Science Program, as well as a Kellogg Professor of Management and Organizations by Courtesy. He is the director of the Visual Thinking Laboratory, where a team of researchers explore how leveraging the visual system - the largest single system in your brain - can help people think, remember, and communicate more efficiently.

His undergraduate training was in computer science and cognitive science at Rutgers University, followed by a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Harvard University, and postdoctoral research at the Universityof British Columbia. His work on both Cognitive Science and Data Visualization has been funded by the National Science Foundation, as well as the Department of Education, and the Department of Defense. He has received a prestigious National Science FoundationCAREER award, given to researchers who combine excellent research with outstanding teaching, and he has received a Psychonomic Society Early Career award for his research on visual thinking.

Frank Gleeson became NACS president and CEO on January 1, 2026. He has deep experience in foodservice and convenience retailing. As president & CEO of Aramark Northern Europe from 2017–2024, he oversaw a team of over 20,000 employees across 2,800-plus locations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), which served an estimated 1 million meals a day. Before Aramark, Gleeson was retail director at Topaz Energy Group and vice president retail of Statoil Ireland (now Equinor), where he led the development of the first American-style convenience store in Ireland. Most recently, he served as chairman of the National Oil Reserve Agency in Ireland.

Gleeson was on the NACS Board of Directors for 11 years, including his term as 2018-19 NACS Chairman. In addition, he was a board member and chairman of Retail Ireland, a board member and president of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation and a board member of the Irish Transport Authority.

Julie Hennessy is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Professor Hennessy's MBA and Executive teaching focuses on the development of Marketing Strategies to enhance long-term competitive advantage and profitability. She works frequently with research and technology-driven firms that desire to become more customer-centric, in both new product/services and mature product/services categories.

At Kellogg, she teaches three courses: Introduction to Marketing, Advanced Marketing Strategy for Growth and Defense, and Marketing Consulting Lab. In addition to MBA courses, she teaches extensively at the Executive level. Recent Executive teaching assignments have included work with Starbucks, Facebook, Hyatt, SC Johnson, Abbvie, Medtronic, Nestle, McDonalds, Microsoft, ABInBev, John Deere, Kraft/Heinz and Textron.

Professor Hennessy has been a regular recipient of teaching awards at the Kellogg School. In both 2017 and 2007, she received the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg's top award for teaching quality and impact, as voted by the Kellogg graduating class. She had been a finalist (top 5 faculty members) in consideration for the Lavengood Award in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. Professor Hennessy has also been recognized by her academic department, winning the Marketing Department's Core Course Teaching award three times, most recently in 2022. She has also received special student impact awards in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Professor Hennessy is also a leader on the Executive Education side of Kellogg. She serves as Academic Director of Kellogg's Executive Development Program, an intensive, three week program for Senior Executives. She is also the Academic Director for two Kellogg Custom programs: one for Textron Corporation and one for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Professor Hennessy serves as a coach for executives newly joining the Kellogg faculty in Executive teaching roles.

Kevin McTigue is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management teaching multiple classes for the MBA, Global EMBA, and executive education programs. His career spans more than twenty-five years in teaching, consulting, brand management, and advertising.

Kevin is currently the academic director for Kellogg’s Chief Digital Officer program and co-director of Kellogg’s Advertising and Marketing Communication Strategy program. He co-authored The Creative Brief Blueprint, contributed to Kellogg on Branding and Kellogg on Marketing. He conducts executive training and consulting for a variety of firms on the topics of marketing and advertising strategy.

Before his full-time appointment at Kellogg, Kevin led a strategy consulting practice for global digital agency SapientRazorfish. Prior to consulting, he spent seven years in brand management with Tyson Foods leading businesses including Jimmy Dean, Ball Park, and Hillshire Farm. Early in his career, Kevin spent significant time working in digital and traditional advertising.

Loran Nordgren is a professor at the Kellogg School of Management and bestselling author. His mission is to use behavioral science to make leaders and organizations better. As a behavioral scientist, Loran's research explores the psychological forces that propel and prevent the adoption of new ideas. A former Fulbright scholar, his research has been published in leading journals such as Science, and, in recognition of his work, Professor Nordgren has received the Theoretical Innovation Award in experimental psychology. As a lecturer, Loran teaches Leadership in Organizations. He has twice received Kellogg’s Management Teacher of the Year award and is the former academic director of Kellogg’s executive MBA programs. As a practitioner, Loran is the founder of Aerocept, a behavioral design agency that helps companies overcome the friction that awaits their breakthrough ideas. Loran’s first book The Human Element: overcoming the resistance that awaits new ideas, spent multiple weeks on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list.

Thomas F. O'Toole is the Associate Dean of Executive Education at Kellogg, and Clinical Professor of Marketing, at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. His work, teaching and research at Kellogg focuses on subjects including: connecting data science to business value creation, data-driven marketing, customer value management, digital business models and loyalty programs. He developed and teaches a Kellogg MBA course on Customer Loyalty strategy. Additionally, he teaches many C-level Executive Education programs, including: Leading with Big Data and Analytics, Advanced Marketing Management, The CMO Program and The Customer-Focused Organization. He developed and teaches the upcoming (2020) online Executive Education course on Customer Loyalty. He is the author of "Branding Services in the Digital Era" in Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World (Wiley, 2019).

O'Toole is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey and Company. For McKinsey, he provides strategic guidance to clients in the Travel, Transportation and Logistics and other business sectors (e.g., energy, retail, health care) on enterprise data analytics, revenue strategy, customer value management, digital enterprise transformation, loyalty programs and related subjects.

O'Toole currently serves on the Board of Directors of three public companies: Alliant Energy (LNT), an S&P 500 company providing electricity, natural gas, renewable energy and logistics services through its production, distribution, transportation and related businesses; Extended Stay America (STAY), the largest integrated hotel owner/operator in North America, and the leading brand in the mid-priced extended stay segment, with over 600 hotels; and LSC Communications (LKSD), a leading provider of printing, publishing logistics, office products and related services. He serves on the Board of Directors of cxLoyalty, a world leader in loyalty programs and customer engagement solutions. In 2016, he was appointed by the US Secretary of Commerce to, and currently serves on, the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Travel Promotion (dba Brand USA), the nation's public-private enterprise to promote travel to the USA.

Until his retirement at the end of 2016, O'Toole was Chief Marketing Officer, Senior Vice President and President, MileagePlus of United Airlines. At United, he was responsible for brand strategy, marketing, product development, ecommerce, digital channels, ancillary revenue, co-brand credit cards, customer data analytics, marketing systems, partnerships and other functions, including United's MileagePlus loyalty program. MileagePlus was, at the time, the largest travel loyalty program, and top-rated frequent flyer program, in the world. He joined United as Chief Marketing Officer in 2010.

Before United, O'Toole was Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Information Officer for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, where over 13 years was responsible for Hyatt's marketing, loyalty program, distribution, information technology and related functions worldwide. He joined Hyatt as Vice President of Marketing in 1995.

O'Toole's career has spanned an exceptionally broad range of C-level executive positions, business accomplishments and marketing disciplines. He is a frequently invited speaker at conferences and programs on leading edge marketing practices, current marketing developments, data-driven marketing and related subjects. In 1998, he was named to the Advertising Age "Marketing 100".

O'Toole is active in civic, charitable, educational and philanthropic endeavors. He currently serves on the Boards of the CSU Foundation and the Big Shoulders Fund of Chicago.

O'Toole holds the degrees of Master of Applied Communication Theory and Methodology and Bachelor of Arts with concentration in communication research from the Cleveland State University. In 2013, he was named the Distinguished Alumnus of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Prof. Sawhney is a globally recognized scholar, teacher, consultant and speaker in business innovation, modern marketing, and Artificial Intelligence applications in business.

Prof. Sawhney has written seven management books as well as dozens of influential articles in leading academic journals and managerial publications. His most recent book, The Sentient Enterprise: The Evolution of Business Decision Making, was published in October 2017 and was on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. He has also written a book of poetry called Love, Longing and Loneliness in 2014. His research has been published in leading journals like California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Management Science, Marketing Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is a contributor to Forbes and his articles have been published in Fortune, Financial Times, CIO Magazine and TheHill.com.

Prof. Sawhney is a pioneer in online executive education. He has created more than fifteen online Executive Education courses, including Digital Marketing Strategies, Product Strategy, AI Applications for Growth, and the Kellogg Chief Product Officer Program. In five years, from 2019 to 2024, these online courses have enrolled over 24,000 participants from 112 countries, and have generated $75 million in gross revenues. He has also co-authored bestselling simulation games like DigiStrat (2021), CloudStrat (2020) and PhotoWars. He has authored over 30 case studies, including 16 bestsellers and two classics in the Harvard Business School Publishing catalog. In 2021, he was ranked by the Case Center as 23rd in the list of top academic case writers in the world. He has won several awards for his teaching and research, including the 2006 Sidney Levy Award for Teaching Excellence at the Kellogg School, the 2005 runner-up for Best Paper in Journal of Interactive Marketing, the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper published in California Management Review in 2000 and the Outstanding Professor of the Year at Kellogg in 1998. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 2011 and the Global Alumni Recognition Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2021.

Prof. Sawhney advises and speaks to Global 2000 firms and governments worldwide. His speaking and consulting clients include Accenture, Adobe Systems, AT&T, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Commvault, Dell, Entergy, Fidelity Investments, General Mills, Google, Honeywell, Intuit, Jenner & Block, Jones Lang LaSalle, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg Company, Kenvue, KPMG, McDonald's, Meta, Merck, Microsoft, Planview, Raytheon Missile Systems, Roche, SAP, Salesforce, Smartsheet, Sony, Teradata and Vanguard. He serves on the Board of Directors at Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bahwan Cybertek, and QualSights. He also serves on the advisory boards of several technology startups, including Course5 Intelligence, LawGeex, MommyDaddyMe, PomVom, Skills Caravan, Skill Engine, StartupWind, and vMock. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Study for Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State University and a member of the Advisory Board at Chicago Innovation.

Prof. Sawhney holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Dr. Rucker holds the Sandy & Morton Goldman Professorship of Entrepreneurial Studies in Marketing. His primary research focuses broadly on the topics of social hierarchy, compensatory consumption, persuasion, and consumer behavior. His work asks, and seeks answers to, what makes for effective advertising and what motives underlies consumer consumption. To answer these questions Dr. Rucker draws on his rich training in social psychology. His work has appeared in leading journals that span psychology and marketing such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In addition, his research has been covered in major media outlets such as The New York Times, Time Magazine, and ABC News.

Dr. Rucker currently teaches Advertising Strategy at Kellogg. The course focuses on basic psychological principles to better understand how to plan and execute successful advertising. In recognition of his commitment to teaching excellence Dr. Rucker was nominated as a finalist for the L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award and a recipient of the Top Elective Professor Award. In addition to his work in the classroom, Dr. Rucker is a co-instructor of the annual Kellogg Advertising Superbowl Review. The review is in the spirit of Kellogg's focus on experiential learning and cultivates basic principals learned in the classroom to critically evaluate advertising in a real world and high stakes environment.