Srikumar Rao, PhD

Website:www.areyoureadytosucceed.com

Dr. Rao received his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. He has an M. Phil. in Marketing from the same school in addition to an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His undergraduate training was in Physics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

He has extensive business experience with blue chip corporations. As Associate Director, Marketing Research Services for Data Resources, Inc., he was in complete charge of all marketing research and related activities. His operational responsibilities included supervising current projects, liaison with corporate clients and prospecting for new business. Planning responsibilities included developing a complete blueprint for establishing marketing research as a separate unit within the DRI context while retaining links with traditional econometric consulting activities.

He was a senior consultant to the Continental Group in mergers and acquisitions and helped target medium sized companies – sales range $50-250 million – as potential takeover candidates. As Special Assistant to the President of Warner Communications, Inc., he worked on a variety of projects ranging from installing a management information system to devising advertising strategy for major motion pictures.

Dr. Rao has consulted with such companies as RCA, Reuters, Citicorp, GTE, Pan Am and Diner’s Club. He was a seminar leader with the American Management Association in the area of information technology. He is an expert on marketing strategy and has taught in the corporate programs of companies such as Verizon, Northrop-Grumman, Symbol Technologies and General Instruments as well as in the executive programs of Columbia Business School.

He has been a contributing editor for Forbes and writes regularly about the impact of technology on business processes. He covers innovative implementation of cutting edge technology and evaluates the strategic implications of such deployments.

He also writes for other national magazines such as Inc., Business 2.0, Hemispheres, Beyond Computing and Training and was a contributing editor for both Financial World and Success. He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Dr. Rao is the Louis and Johanna Vorzimer Professor of Marketing at the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. His course - Creativity and Personal Mastery - is one of the highest rated courses at Columbia Business School and has been written up in major media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Business Week.

Dr. Rao has served as a marketing advisor to the national board of MENSA. He is interested in programs for gifted children and the development of special instructional materials for them. His other interests include tennis, squash, karate, table tennis and chess; Eastern philosophy and meditation; and Wodehouse, science fiction and creative writing.