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Omar Rodríguez-Vilá - Emory University, Goizueta Business School. Atlanta, GA, US

Omar Rodríguez-Vilá

Professor in the Practice of Marketing ; Academic Director of Education, Business & Society Institute | Emory University, Goizueta Business School

Atlanta, GA, UNITED STATES

Educator and scholar on modern marketing practices including how sustainability and technology have changed the pursuit of firm growth.

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Biography

Omar Rodríguez-Vilá is Professor in the Practice of Marketing and currently serves as Academic Director of Education at Goizueta's Business & Society Institute, an academic research center with a mission to transform business to build a more equitable and climate-smart world.

He completed his PhD in Marketing from Emory University's Goizueta Business School (2012). Prior to joining Goizueta, Dr. Rodríguez-Vilá was a faculty member at the Scheller College of Business of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

He has been selected as Core Professor of the Year six times during his 8 years in academia. Dr. Rodríguez-Vilá’s primary research focus is forces transforming the practice of marketing. First, he studies how environmental and social sustainability considerations are changing the nature of marketing activities. His work entitled “Competing on Social Purpose” was published in Harvard Business Review on September 2017 and ranks among the most read articles on the subject on HBR. It was re-published in 2020 as part of a special edition on Leadership and Purpose.

He is currently leading research into how brands communicate societal benefits in social media and into the marketplace practices of antiracist brands. He also studies how firms are evolving their marketing capabilities in order to compete in technology led market environments. His more recent work entitled “Is Your Marketing Organization Ready for What’s Next?” was published in the December 2020 edition of Harvard Business Review. Prior to his career in academia, Dr. Rodríguez-Vilá held leadership positions in marketing at The Coca‐Cola Company including serving as the Global Vice-President of Integrated Marketing Communications and Integrated Marketing Director for Coca-Cola China.

Education (3)

Emory University: PhD, Marketing 2012

Northwestern University: MBA, Business Administration (Strategy and Marketing) 2001

Syracuse University: Bachelor of Science, Communications 1991

Areas of Expertise (5)

Marketing Strategy

Sustainability

Social Purpose

Modern Marketing

Marketing Capabilities

Publications (3)

Is Your Marketing Organization Ready for What’s Next?

Harvard Business Review

Omar Rodríguez-Vilá, Sundar Bharadwaj, Neil A. Morgan, and Shubu Mitra

November–December 2020 Summary - Sweeping technological change has revolutionized marketing, while societal challenges have raised expectations about marketers’ social performance. This has altered customer needs, accelerated the entry of new types of competitors, and generated..

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Competing on Social Purpose

Harvard Business Review

Omar Rodríguez-Vilá and Sundar Bharadwaj

September–October 2017 Summary. Consumers increasingly expect brands to have a social purpose beyond mere functional benefits. As a result, companies are taking social stands in very visible ways. For example, TOMS’s one-for-one program donates shoes and other goods for every product...

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Omar Rodriguez Vila (Emory University) | Marketing is a Team Sport

The CMO Podcast

Jim Stengel

n this episode, Omar talks about how the role of the CMO is changing and how it will continue to evolve. Omar also discusses the best marketing strategies from his perspective as an educator and why leading from the middle brings out the best in organizations and campaigns.

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Research Spotlight

In the News (1)

Why more brands are making environmentalism central to their marketing plans

AdAge  online

2021-04-19

"That's one mega-trend here to stay," Stengel says. He cites the outlook of Emory professor Omar Rodriguez-Vila, recently interviewed on Stengel's podcast, that while sustainability "used to be outside of what we see as the value equation for consumers" and left to public relations and or supply chain people to deal with, now it's seen as central to the work of brand marketers and general managers.

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