Jagdish N. Sheth

Jagdish N. Sheth is one of the most influential scholars in the history of marketing — a thinker whose work bridges rigorous theory and real-world practice across six decades.

His foundational contributions include The Theory of Buyer Behavior (with John A. Howard), which established a generation of consumer-behavior research, and later landmark works such as The Rule of Three, Firms of Endearment, The 4 A's of Marketing, and The Global Rule of Three: Competing with Conscious Strategy. He has authored or co-authored more than three hundred papers and over thirty books.

Beyond the academy, Professor Sheth has advised the governments of the United States and Singapore and counseled companies including Whirlpool, Motorola, Texas Instruments, AT&T, BellSouth, Rockwell International, the Aditya Birla Group, and WIPRO — on matters ranging from mergers and acquisitions to strategic repositioning. He is the founder of the Center for Telecommunications Management at USC and founder and chairman of the India, China, and America (ICA) Institute.

He received the 2020 Padma Bhushan — one of India's highest civilian honors — for literature and education, and is the only scholar to have won all four of the American Marketing Association's top awards.

Professor Sheth has served on the boards of several companies, including Norstan, PacWest Telecom, CryoCell International, Shasun Drugs and Chemicals, and WIPRO Limited. Over five decades he has advised Whirlpool, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Cox Communications, Rockwell International, AT&T, BellSouth, WIPRO Consumer Care, the Aditya Birla Group, Arcelor-Mittal (Avanta), Ernst & Young, Square D, Ingram Micro, and the Hughes Corporation — on mergers and acquisitions and on strategic positioning and repositioning. His Rule of Three framework has guided investment bankers and policymakers on industry consolidation, including horizontal mergers and acquisitions.

He has advised the Government of Singapore on repositioning the nation for the future, and served as a policy advisor to the U.S. Government on the future of the telecommunications industry.

Professor Sheth is the founder of the Center for Telecommunications Management (CTM) at the University of Southern California, now an institute, and founder and chairman of the India, China, and America (ICA) Institute, which analyzes the trilateral relationship and its impact on geopolitics, security, trade, and investment. He is also founder and chairman of the Academy of Indian Marketing (AIM).

With his wife, Madhuri Sheth, he established the Sheth Family Foundation, supporting charities in India and the United States, and the Madhuri and Jagdish Sheth Foundation, supporting marketing scholars and scholarship — including the AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium hosted annually by universities, and research through the AMA, ACR, AMS, and AIB.