You may be surprised to learn that Chicago Booth is making inroads into an area that its crosstown rival (Northwestern Kellogg) is known to dominate: marketing. Through the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing—named for the Chicago Booth alumnus who was formerly CEO of Gillette and Nabisco (and is now a partner at Centerview Partners)—Chicago Booth offers students roughly ten marketing electives. In particular, the school is growing its experiential opportunities in the marketing field, with students taking part in marketing management labs (semester-long consulting projects) at such companies as Abbott Laboratories, Bank of America, and Honeywell International. Further, professors in the department saw opportunities for increased practical involvement and created “hybrid” classes in “Marketing Research” and “New Product Development” that involve a lecture component but also allow students to work on shorter-term consulting projects.
Students can also sign up to be paired with an alumni marketing mentor or apply for Marketing Fellowships, which provide scholarship funds and a two-year mentoring relationship. Although Kellogg’s reputation for excellence in marketing is firmly intact, we have to assume that the folks in Evanston are occasionally glancing over their shoulder to see whether Chicago Booth is continuing to gain ground.
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