Valarie A. Zeithaml
University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill

VALARIE ZEITHAML is the Roy and Alice H. Richards Bicentennial Professor and MBA Associate Dean at the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since receiving her MBA and PhD in marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in 1980, Professor Zeithaml has devoted her career to researching and teaching the topics of service quality and services management. She is the co-author of Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations (Free Press, 1990), now in its 13th printing; and Driving Customer Equity: How Customer Lifetime Value Is Reshaping Corporate Strategy (with Roland Rust and Katherine Lemon, Free Press, 2000). In 2002, Driving Customer Equity won the first Berry–American Marketing Association Book Prize for the best marketing book of the past three years.

In 2004, Professor Zeithaml received both the Innovative Contributor to Marketing Award given by the Marketing Management Association and the Outstanding Marketing Educator Award given by the Academy of Marketing Science. In 2001, she received the American Marketing Association’s Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award.

Professor Zeithaml has won five teaching awards, including the Gerald Barrett Faculty Award from the University of North Carolina and The Fuqua School Outstanding MBA Teaching Award from Duke University. She is also the recipient of numerous research awards, including the Robert Ferber Consumer Research Award from the Journal of Consumer Research, the Harold H. Maynard Award from the Journal of Marketing, the MSI Paul Root Award from the Journal of Marketing, the Jagdish Sheth Award from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the William F. O’Dell Award from the Journal of Marketing Research. She has consulted with more than 50 service and product companies.

Professor Zeithami served on the Board of Directors of the American Marketing Association from 2000 to 2003 and is currently an Academic Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute.

Mary Jo Bitner
Arizona State University

MARY JO BITNER is the PETsMART Chair in Services Leadership in the Marketing Department at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. She also serves as Academic Director for the Center for Services Leadership at ASU. Dr. Bitner was a founding faculty member of the Center for Services Leadership and has been a leader in its emergence as a premier university-based center for the study of services marketing and management. In the mid-1990s she led the development of the W. P. Carey MBA Services Marketing and Management specialization. Alumni of this program now work in companies across the United States, leading the implementation of services and customer-focused strategies. Dr. Bitner has published more than 50 articles and has received a number of awards for her research in leading journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, International Journal of Service Industry Management, and Academy of Management Executive. She has consulted with and presented seminars and workshops for numerous businesses, including Yellow Roadway Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Caremark, IBM Global Services, and RR Donnelley. In 2003, Dr. Bitner was honored with the Career Contributions to the Services Discipline award by the American Marketing Association’s Services Special Interest Group.

Dwayne D. Gremler
Bowling Green State University

DWAYNE D. GREMLER is Associate Professor of Marketing at Bowling Green State University. He received his MBA and PhD degrees from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Throughout his academic career, Dr. Gremler has been a passionate advocate for the research and instruction of services marketing issues. He has served as Chair of the American Marketing Association’s Services Marketing Special Interest Group and has helped organize services marketing conferences in Australia, The Netherlands, France, and the United States. Dr. Gremler has been invited to conduct seminars and present research on services marketing issues in several countries. Dr. Gremler’s research addresses customer loyalty in service businesses, customer-employee interactions in service delivery, service guarantees, and word-ofmouth communication. He has published articles in the Journal of Service Research, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Marketing Education. He has also been the recipient of several research awards at BGSU, including the College of Business Administration Outstanding Scholar Award and the Robert A. Patton Scholarly Achievement Award. While a professor at the University of Idaho, Dr. Gremler received the First Interstate Bank Student Excellence in Award for teaching, an award determined by students in the College of Business and Economics.

Ajay Pandit
UNiversity of Delhi

AJAY PANDIT, prior to rejoining Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, spent one year as Professor, School of Economics and Management, Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan, China. Before joining Hainan University, he was Dean and Professor at the School of Management Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) on deputation from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi. He has also been the Dean of School of Environment, School of Education and School of Humanities at the Indraprastha University. Professor Pandit has been on the faculty of FMS, a top 10 B-School in India, for more than 29 years. He did hi BE, MBA, LLB and PhD from University of Delhi. He has been the Principal Educational Consultant to the Deakin University and APESMA, Australia for their distance Education MBA (Technology Management) Program. He has also been their Marketing Unit Chair. Professor Pandit is a brilliant academic, an avid researcher, a prolific writer, a consultant, and an institution builder, all rolled into one. He has been bestowed upon the "Higher Education and Development Award" by the International Association of Educators for World Peace (An UN-affiliated NGO) at the Higher Education and Development Summit held at New Delhi in April 2004. Pandit has to his credit many research papers, articles and 4 books. He has guided several students into completing their PhDs.