BIO

Dr. Eli Jones is a Professor of Marketing, Lowry and Peggy Mays Eminent Scholar, and the former Dean of Mays Business School at his alma mater, Texas A&M University. He served as the Dean of three flagship business schools over 13 years of his 26 years in higher education. Dean of Mays Business School (2015-2021), Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business and holder of the Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair at the University of Arkansas (2012-2015), and as Dean of the E. J. Ourso College of Business and the E. J. Ourso Distinguished Professor of Business at Louisiana State University (2008-2012). Prior to becoming a dean, he was on the faculty at the University of Houston as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor with tenure, Full Professor, Associate Dean for Executive Education Programs, Director of the Program for Excellence in Selling, and founding Executive Director of the Sales Excellence Institute at the University of Houston in the Bauer College of Business.

He has published sales and sales management research in top academic journals and is a co-author of three professional books, Selling ASAP: Art, Science, Agility, and Performance;Strategic Sales Leadership: Breakthrough Thinking for Breakthrough Results; and a forthcoming book, Making Differences Work. His solo-authored book, Run Toward Your Goliaths,is about his and his wife’s faith journey and is meant to encourage a new generation of leaders to find their strength in adversity.His academic publications have been cited more than 9,000 times, according to Google Scholar. Also, Jones is the recipient of Excellence in Teaching awards on the university, national, and international levels having taught strategic selling, advanced professional selling, key accounts selling, sales leadership, and marketing strategy at the undergraduate, MBA levels, and in executive education programs in Belgium, China, France, India, Malaysia, Trinidad, the U.K., and U.S. Before becoming a professor, Jones worked in sales and sales management for three Fortune 500 global companies. He is currently on the boards of Invesco Funds, Insperity, First Financial Bank, and the American Marketing Association (AMA).

In 2016, the AMA Sales Special Interest Group awarded Dr. Jones the Lifetime Achievement Award for sustained contributions to the sales and sales management discipline. In 2021, he was honored with recognition by Savoy magazine as one of the top influential Corporate Directors in business today, and Texas A&M University former students honored him with the Aggie Impact Award for making a global impact in his community and profession. In 2022, AMA awarded Dr. Jones the prestigious AMA-Irwin-McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award for distinguished service and outstanding contributions in marketing education.In the same year, the Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) awarded Dr. Jones its prestigious Distinguished Marketing Educator Award. His mission is to bridge academia and business, and, as evidence, his alma mater recognized Jones as an outstanding doctoral student alumnus in October 2009 and an outstanding business alumnus in April 2022. He also is one of 12 recipients in the TAMU System to be awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusionin 2022.