Joel Le Bon portrait

Joël Le Bon, PhD

Professor of Practice

Academic Area(s): Marketing, Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Area(s) of Interest: Commercialization and Go-to-Market Strategy; Revenue Operations; Digital Business Development; Sales Leadership; Preventive Health and Public Policy; Engineering of Serendipity and Luck

SMS
Email: [email protected]
CV
CV: Joël Le Bon
Website
Website: LinkedIn Profile
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Phone: 410-234-4793

Joël Le Bon, PhD, is a full professor of marketing in the practice track at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and co-founder and executive director of the Digital Business Development Initiative. He researches and teaches commercialization strategy and technology-enabled marketing, sales, and customer service systems, with a focus on go-to-market strategy, revenue operations, and digital business development. His work also engages with healthcare systems, preventive health, and technology-enabled care. He has held academic and leadership appointments at the University of Houston Bauer College of Business and at ESSEC Business School in France and Singapore, where he served as associate professor of marketing and department head. Prior to entering academia, he worked as a strategic account manager at Xerox Corporation.

Professor Le Bon’s research examines how marketing and sales interfaces, AI-enabled coordination mechanisms, and collaboration structures shape organizational and system-level performance in complex environments. Integrating marketing systems theory with concepts of luck and the engineering of serendipity, his work extends into preventive health and early cancer detection, focusing on how system design and data infrastructures determine whether diagnostic opportunities are realized equitably or left to chance.

His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner publications, including Harvard Business Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and Industrial Marketing Management, among others. He has earned over 25 international distinctions, including best-paper and teaching awards, in recognition of his academic achievements and contributions.

Professor Le Bon holds a BA in Management Science, an MS in Marketing and Strategy, and a PhD in Marketing from Paris Dauphine University. He was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Pennsylvania State University within the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, or ISBM, and is an alumnus of the Kellogg School of Management ITP program at Northwestern University. He has worked and lived in Europe, Asia, and the United States and was born in Mauritius.

Education

  • PhD, Marketing, Paris Dauphine University
  • MS, Marketing and Strategy, Paris Dauphine University
  • BA, Management Science, Paris Dauphine University

Research

Selected publications

  • Dugan R., Rangarajan D., Bolander W., Bolman Pullins E., Davis L., Deeter-Schmelz D., Le Bon J., Agnihotri R. (2020), Sales Management, Education, and Scholarship Across Cultures: Early Findings from a Global Study and an Agenda for Future Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 40(3), 198-212.
  • Le Bon J. (2019), Reinventing and Retooling the Future of Sales Work with AI: A Moral Imperative for Sales Organizations and Educators, in C. Burmeister, AI For Sales: How AI Is Changing Sales, Kindle Direct Publishing.
  • Dixon A., Le Bon J., and Wieseke J. (2019), Perspectives on International Collaboration in Sales Research: Introduction to the Special Issue, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 39 (4), 317-318.
  • Le Bon J. (2015), Training and Qualification: Developing a Competency Model to Assess Sales Leaders' Equity, in M. Zuech (ed.), Handbook of Human Resources Management, Berlin: Springer Science+Business Media.
  • Le Bon J. (2015), Why the Best Salespeople Get So Lucky, Harvard Business Review, HBR.org, April 13, Harvard Business School Publishing.
  • Hughes D., Le Bon J., and Rapp A. (2013), Gaining and Leveraging Customer-Based Competitive Intelligence: The Pivotal Role of Social Capital and Salesperson Adaptive Selling Skills, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41, 91-110.
  • Hughes D., Le Bon J., and Malshe A. (2012), The Marketing-Sales Interface at the Interface: Creating Market-Based Capabilities through Organizational Synergy, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 22 (1), 57-72.
  • Le Bon J. and Hughes D. (2009), The Dilemma of Outsourced Customer Service and Care: Research Propositions from a Transaction Cost Perspective, Industrial Marketing Management, 38, 4, 391-397.
  • Le Bon J. and Merunka D. (2006), The Impact of Individual and Managerial Factors on Salespeople's Contribution to Marketing Intelligence Activities, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23, 4, 395-408.

Books

  • Le Bon J. and Herman C. (2015), Key Account Management: Strategies to Leverage Information, Technology, and Relationships to Deliver Value to Large Customers, New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
  • Le Bon J. (2014), Competitive Intelligence and the Sales Force: How to Gain Market Leadership through Competitive Intelligence, New York, NY: Business Expert Press.

Teaching

Current

  • Sales Force Management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Marketing Management

Honors and distinctions

  • The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School Dean's Award for Faculty Excellence, 2019, 2020, 2021
  • Listed in the Marquis Who’s Who in America, 2018
  • Winner, University of Houston University-Wide Teaching Excellence Award, Instructional, 2018
  • Listed in the Marquis Who’s Who Albert Nelson Lifetime Achievement Recognition, 2017
  • Winner, SMA Society for Marketing Advances Axcess Capon Distinguished Teacher Award, USA, 2017
  • Winner, AMS Academy of Marketing Science Lamb-Hair-McDaniel Outstanding Marketing Teacher Award, USA, 2017
  • Winner, AMA American Marketing Association Sales Special Interest Group Excellence in Teaching Award, USA, 2016
  • Winner, University of Houston University-Wide Group Teaching Excellence Award, 2016
  • SMA Society for Marketing Advances Certificate of Excellence in Distinguished Teaching Award, USA, 2015
  • Winner, University of Houston Bauer College of Business Wayne & Kathryn E. Payne Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2014
  • Best Paper Award, GSSI Conference - Global Sales Sciences Institute, London, UK, 2014
  • Irwin/McGraw Hill Steven J. Shaw Overall Conference Best Paper Award, SMA Conference - Society for Marketing Advances, Memphis, USA, 2011
  • Best Paper Award, SMA Conference, Sales and Sales Management Track - Society for Marketing Advances, Memphis, USA, 2011
  • Best Paper Award, AMA Winter Educators' Conference, Interorganizational Issues Track - American Marketing Association, Tampa, USA, 2009
  • Best Paper Award, AMA Summer Educators' Conference, Sales and Sales Management Track - American Marketing Association, San Diego, USA, 2008
  • Winner, AMA American Marketing Association Prentice Hall's Solomon-Marshall-Stuart Teaching Award for Innovative Excellence in Marketing Education, USA, 2007 (First winner non-affiliated with an American institution)
  • Listed in the Marquis Who’s Who in the World, 2004
  • IBM Faculty Award, 2002 (First French winner)
  • Winner, AMA American Marketing Association Sales Special Interest Group Best Doctoral Dissertation Award, USA, 2000 (First winner non-affiliated with an American institution)
  • Finalist, AFM French Marketing Association - FNEGE Best Doctoral Dissertation Award, France, 2000
  • Best Paper Award, AMA Summer Educators’ Conference, Sales Force Management, Personal Selling and Channels of Distribution Track - American Marketing Association, San Francisco, USA, 1999
  • The FNEGE French National Foundation for Management Education Research Scholarship, France, 1998
  • Best Doctoral Student Paper Award - National Conference in Sales Management, Norfolk, USA, 1998
  • Best Dissertation Proposal in Management Award - The Paris University Chancery Scholarship, France, 1993
  • Best Dissertation Proposal in Social Sciences Award - The Cetelem Foundation Scholarship, France, 1993

Impact and engagement

Business

  • Consulting, executive education and speaking engagements for 3M, Arthur D. Little, BASF, Dalet, DHL, ENL Group, Essilor, Eiffage, Fedex, Groupama, Hanglas, IBM, Mazars, Mobivia, N3/Accenture, Renault-Nissan, Orange, Rogers, SAP, SBM Bank, Samsung Motors, Schlumberger, SCI, Schneider Electric, Sodexo, Thales, Transporeon, Velogic, Veranda Leisure & Hospitality, Xerox

Community

  • Co-chair, 2024 AMS WMC Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress, Mauritius (first AMS WMC held in Africa)
  • Member of the Board of Associate Curators, AMS Academy of Marketing Science Sparks, 2023–present
  • Member of the Editorial Review Board, Sales Area, the Journal of Business Research, 2023–present
  • Member of the Editorial Board, the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 2009–present
  • Jury Member, SMA Society for Marketing Advances Axcess Capon Distinguished Teacher Award Competition, 2021–present
  • Chair (Elected), American Marketing Association, Sales Special Interest Group, 2020–2022
  • Chief Academic Researcher, Mindset Science, 2019–2022
  • Board of Advisors Member, Sales Enablement Society, now known as the Revenue Enablement Society, 2018–2022  
  • Chief Academic Researcher and Higher Education Representative, AA-ISP American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, 2017–2022  
  • Member & Higher Education Representative, EEF Enterprise Executive Forum, AA-ISP American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, 2017–2022
  • Vice-chair of the Africa Forum, GSSI Global Sales Science Institute, 2017–2019
  • Vice-chair for Conference Programming, American Marketing Association Sales Special Interest Group, 2016–2018
  • Co-chair, 2017 Global Sales Science Institute Conference, Mauritius (first GSSI held in Africa)