Contact Professor Hugh Wilson

Background

Hugh has a mathematics degree from Oxford University, a postgraduate computer science degree from Cambridge University, and a prize-winning PhD in marketing strategy and planning from Cranfield. Prior to joining the Cranfield faculty in 2004, he had 20 years' experience with IBM, Logica CMG, Xerox and others in consulting, product management and marketing strategy. He has advised the UK's Service Transformation Board, the Varney Review and NHS Direct on cost and experience transformation in public services. Hugh is listed in the Chartered Institute of Marketing's "Guru Gallery" of "the 50 leading marketing thinkers alive in the world today", and has been honoured by the UK's Secretary of State for Business and Tim Berners-Lee as one of the hundred individuals who have had most influence over the development of e-commerce, according to a NOP poll of practitioners and an expert panel.

Current activities

Hugh is a Visiting Professor at Cranfield School of Management.

Hugh spends much of his time working with world-class companies on marketing strategy, customer experience management and sustainability marketing, as well as teaching on these topics in Cranfield. He was joint winner of the School of Management's Teaching Prize in 2015, and was voted by students as the School of Management's Best Lecturer in the 2017 Student-Led Teaching Awards.

Hugh writes extensively for both executives and academics. His books include The Multichannel Challenge (2008) and Marketing Plans, 8th edition (2016). He has published five articles on customer experience and social identity for Harvard Business Review, and was interviewed about persuasion for Stephen Fry's Radio 4 programme "Fry's English Delight". He is a frequent keynote speaker for industry conferences. He has published over 40 academic papers in Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of the American Statistical Association and British Journal of Management, amongst other journals. He recently completed a five-year editorial board appointment for Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

Hugh's research interests include B2B solutions, customer experience management and sustainability marketing. From 2014-2016 he was Cranfield's Principal Investigator for EU-Innovate, an EU-funded consortium investigating how to construct sustainable lifestyles by 2050. He initiated Cranfield's carbon programme which has reduced the University's carbon emissions by 32% so far.

Clients

Recent clients for executive education, consulting and director-level coaching include AXA, Emirates, GKN, Balfour Beatty, ING, Tata, SAS, BSkyB, Rank, Merck, GfK, Oxfam and London Symphony Orchestra.

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

Books