Robert J. Thomas is a Professor in the School of Business at Georgetown University. He received his doctorate in Marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation on organizational buying behavior won first place in the 1981 Academy of Marketing Science dissertation competition. In 1982 he joined the faculty at Georgetown, after a two year visiting position at Wharton. He teaches courses in New Product Development, Marketing Management, and Marketing Research and has taught numerous executive education seminars and courses in the U.S. and several countries.

Bob has published over forty articles in the areas of new product development, organizational buying behavior, segmentation, and forecasting. His book, New Product Development: Managing and Forecasting for Strategic Success was a featured selection of the Fortune Book Club. His book, New Product Success Stories: Lessons from Leading Innovators , has also been published on tape by Fast Track Publishing Company. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, Harvesting Customer Value: Understanding and Applying Customer Value-Based Segmentation . He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Product Innovation Management , Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing , and is an active member in several academic associations, including the American Marketing Association, The Institute of Management Sciences, and the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA).

Bob has consulted with over fifty organizations in a wide variety of industries and cultures, including both consumer and industrial products and services. He has worked with large and small clients on short-term projects and long-term assignments. These assignments include strategic market planning, new product development, forecasting, model building, and planning and executing numerous marketing research projects. In addition, he has provided written and oral testimony in an expert capacity before several regulatory groups, including the Federal Communications Commission, the United States Postal Rate Commission, and the International Trade Commission.