I have been appointed to the American Marketing Association Foundation Board of Advisors for the 2026-27 term. It is an honor I take seriously, and I want to say a few words about why I agreed to serve.
Most of my day is spent working with colleges and universities: presidents, cabinets, enrollment leaders, marketers. Ultimately, they are all trying to help the right students find the right institution. Our work covers research, brand, creative, media, and experience design. It also requires us to be honest about what a campus can and cannot offer. When that is done well, a student makes a better decision. When it is done poorly, the costs show up later in yield, reputation, and trust.
The AMA Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the American Marketing Association. It funds scholarships and immersive learning for students, research grants and conference support for scholars, professional development for practitioners, and recognition for work that moves the field. The Board of Advisors is a volunteer group from industry and academia that helps steer that work.
What the Foundation funds
“Foundation board” can sound ceremonial. This one has a fundraising job attached to it. The Foundation directs gifts to specific programs:
- Inspiring Next Gen. Scholarships, leadership development, and hands-on learning so students can enter the workforce ready.
- Breakthrough Marketing Research. Grants and workshop support that turn early ideas into work that reaches AMA’s journals and, eventually, practice.
- Innovators in Marketing Education. Resources for faculty who are rebuilding how marketing is taught.
- Marketing Excellence in Action. Training and competency-model access for early-career marketers and career changers.
- AMA Diversity Leadership Institute. A multi-day retreat for undergraduate marketing students from historically underrepresented identities.
- Lehmann Leadership Circle and the General Fund. Sustained giving that keeps the rest of the work possible.
These programs represent our industry’s talent pipeline: students who become marketers, faculty who teach them, researchers who test what works, and professionals who have to apply it under budget and deadline. Higher education sits in every layer. It educates the students. It employs the faculty. As an industry, we are one of the most scrutinized users of marketing in American life.
Why an enrollment marketer belongs in the room
The 2026-27 board includes scholars from Illinois, Berkeley, Cornell, UT San Antonio, Montana State, and Cal State San Marcos, and practitioners from firms such as One Foot Over, Ipsos, and Curriculum Associates. I am one of the agency principals at the table, and the only member whose firm is devoted to marketing for colleges and universities.
That is the point of view I intend to bring. Enrollment audiences are young, skeptical, and well researched. The decision is expensive. The results are public. I also care about the people who will do this work next, on campuses, in agencies, and in-house. Many of them will come through AMA collegiate chapters, doctoral programs, and early-career fellowships the Foundation already supports.
What I hope to add
I joined to be useful. That means showing up, doing the homework, and offering what our firm actually sees: how marketing decisions get made when enrollment is on the line, what happens to a brand platform once a recruitment cycle starts, and how digital media, the website, and admissions have to work as one system. It also means keeping the work visible, rather than burying it in a retainer.
I want the board’s academic and industry members to hear more from institutions that are not flagship brands. Regionals, privates, and community colleges enroll most American students. Their marketing budgets are small and the stakes are not.
I am grateful to the AMA Foundation for the invitation, and to my colleagues at Echo Delta who make it possible for me to take on work that sits outside any single client engagement.
