Our Contacts

Robert W. Palmatier, PhD
Global Executive & Research Director, Founder
Email:rp@SAMSinstitute.com|Phone:+1-206-913-3388
Primary contact to discuss new research, training, or expert witness engagements
Robert W. Palmatier is Professor of Marketing and John C. Narver Chair of Business Administration at the Foster School at the University of Washington. He founded and serves as the research director of the Sales and Marketing Strategy Institute (SAMSI) a global organization focused on linking business and academics for knowledge. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from Georgia State University and a doctoral degree from the University of Missouri, followed by post-doctoral research at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Prior to entering academia, Professor Palmatier held various industry positions, including president and COO of C&K Components (global electronics company) and European general manager and sales and marketing manager at Tyco-Raychem Corporation. He also served as a US Navy lieutenant on board nuclear submarines.
Robert’s research interests focus on marketing strategy, relationship marketing, customer loyalty, privacy, marketing channels, and sales management. His research has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Marketing Letters, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. He has also published a number of leading textbooks including Marketing Channel Strategy; Marketing Strategy: Based on First Principles and Data Analytics; a monograph entitled Relationship Marketing; and chapters in numerous books. His research has been highlighted in the Nature, New York Times Magazine, LA Times, Electrical Wholesaling, Agency Sales, and The Representor, as well as on NPR and MSNBC. In a recent AMA study, he was shown to be the 10th most productive scholar in marketing (across top 4 marketing journals) over the past 10 years.
He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Academy of Marketing Science and presently is the Co-editor for Journal of Marketing; and also sits on numerous editorial review boards. His publications have received multiple awards, including the Harold H. Maynard (twice) and Sheth awards at the Journal of Marketing, and Robert D. Buzzell (twice), Lou W. Stern (4 times), selected for both MSI Scholar and Young Scholar, Varadarajan Award for Early Contribution to Marketing Strategy Research, and the American Marketing Association Best Services Article awards. He also has won multiple awards as a teacher of advanced marketing strategy in the doctoral, EMBA, and MBA programs at the University of Washington.
Among the numerous industry and governmental committees on which Robert has served, he chaired proposal selection committees for the National Research Council (NRC), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the Wright Centers of Innovation, which awarded grants of $20 million for the development of a new Wright Center of Innovation based on joint academic–industry proposals. He has served on NASA’s Computing, Information, and Communications Advisory Group, with the AMES Research Center. This advisory group assessed the current state of technology development within academia, governmental agencies, and industry related to NASA’s information technology activities and space exploration requirements. He also consults and serves as an expert witness for companies including Alston+Bird, Paul Hastings, Microsoft, Telstra, Starbucks, Emerson, Fifth Third Bank, Wells Fargo, Genie, Cincom, Tableau, Concur, World Vision, and Belkin.

Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar, PhD
Co-Research Director
Email:hs@SAMSinstitute.com|Phone:+1-979-845-3002
Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar is Professor of Marketing, Joe Foster ’56 Chair in Business Leadership, Presidential Impact Fellow and Chancellor’s EDGES Fellow at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University.
He is an expert in the financial and social impact of marketing strategy, business-to-business marketing, and sales force strategy. He is the Editor-in-Chief designate for the Journal of Marketing and has served as Associate Editor at Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research. He is currently serving as Research Director of the Reynolds and Reynolds Sales Leadership Institute at Texas A&M University.
His research has appeared in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Marketing Science, been a finalist for the Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award and Paul Green Award, and featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, National Public Radio (NPR), Reuters, and Sloan Management Review.
He received the Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research in 2014 and was selected as a Marketing Science Institute Scholar in 2020. He is an award-winning teacher recognized by Poets and Quants and has co-authored two books titled Focus: How to Plan Strategy and Improve Execution to Achieve Growth, and Marketing Strategy: Based on First Principles and Data Analytics.

Eric C. Nobis
Director of Marketing, Spur Reply and Business Liaison, SAMS Institute
Email:eric.nobis@thespurgroup.com|Phone:+1-206-618-9927
Eric Nobis is the Ex Officio Executive Director and co-founder of the Center for Sales and Marketing Strategy at the Foster School of Business. He is also the Managing Director of Marketing and Communications at the Foster School. In 25 years of working as a marketing professional, he’s been a PR pitch man, brand consultant who contributed to a book on brand strategy and launched a second office, creative copywriter and campaign manager, client services strategist, and team lead.
Eric’s combination of agency and research backgrounds has allowed him to work fluidly in and across various marketing disciplines. Among his diverse marketing accomplishments are pitch papers for $250M on behalf of Phillips Healthcare’s CEO (it was accepted); technical articles he wrote for Informationweek, Computerworld, and Network Computing; front-page placement of an article in The Wall Street Journal’s “Marketplace” section; launching a 2nd Seattle location of Parker LePla (acquired by Green Rubino), successful integrated marketing campaigns, and brand discovery and launch projects. He remains excited and curious about the way in which modern marketing is both disruptive to, and being disrupted by, changes in the consumer landscape.
Eric is a voracious reader, road cyclist, chess player, and traveler. He is a UW alum, with a bachelor’s degree in English/creative writing. He also played trumpet in the Husky Band, where he got to travel with the team to two Rose Bowl victories. Eric lives in Seattle with his wife, sons, and Islay (the female English lab who sides with his wife in all things).

General Information
Email:info@SAMSinstitute.com|Phone:+1-206-913-3388
Mailing Address: 80 Vine Street, Suite 401, Seattle, Washington, USA 98121


Gabrielle L. Morgan
Program and Research Manager
Email:GM@samsinstitute.com|Phone:+1-206-291-6890
Gabrielle assists the research fellows in research, training, and expert witness engagements.

Ju-Yeon Lee, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:leejy@iastate.edu|Phone:+1-515-294-5402
Ju-Yeon manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Strategy & Political Marketing
Ju-Yeon Lee is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University. Prior to joining the Iowa State University faculty, she was an Assistant Professor of Marketing and Alison and Norman H. Axelrod '74 Summer Research Fellow at Lehigh University. Her research focuses on marketing strategy with an emphasis on customer-centric organizations, interfirm relationships, political marketing, and online marketing channels. Specifically, she investigates the role of customer-centric organizational design elements (structure, leadership, culture, systems and processes, metrics and incentives) in achieving marketing and financial objectives.
Her research has appeared in premier journals including Harvard Business Review, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Marketing Letters. Her research has been supported by grants from the Marketing Science Institute. She currently serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, where she was recognized with the Best Reviewer Award. She teaches courses in marketing analytics and marketing strategy. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Applied Statistics from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, and masters and doctoral degrees from University of Washington.

Justin M. Lawrence, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:lawrence@okstate.edu|Phone:+1-517-432-6469
Justin manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Sales & B2B Marketing
Justin Lawrence, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of marketing at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. He teaches courses in sales management and marketing analytics. His research has been featured in top marketing journals such as Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Dr. Lawrence received a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in Business Administration-Marketing from the University of Missouri in 2012 and 2017, respectively.
Prior to pursuing his doctoral studies, Dr. Lawrence held leadership positions in sales and pricing at several Fortune 500 firms. He enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, and spending time with his family.

Lena Steinhoff, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:lena.steinhoff@uni-rostock.de|Phone:+49-381-498-40-90
Lena manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Customer Loyalty & Services Marketing
Lena Steinhoff is Assistant Professor of Service Management at the Institute for Marketing and Service Research at the University of Rostock in Germany. Prior to joining University of Rostock in fall of 2018, she held a position as Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Paderborn in Germany. Lena earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international business as well as a doctoral degree in marketing from the University of Paderborn. In 2015 and 2012, she was a visiting scholar at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, funded through scholarships awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Lena’s research interests are relationship marketing, customer loyalty, service management, and marketing strategy. Specifically, she explores the intended as well as the unintended effects diverse relationship marketing instruments such as loyalty programs and online relationships might spur and looks at their impact on company performance. Her research has appeared in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Management Research, and the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Working Paper Series where she has received the 2016 Robert D. Buzzell MSI Best Paper Award. Together with Robert W. Palmatier, she has authored the book Relationship Marketing in the Digital Age, published at Routledge Taylor & Francis. Lena serves on the editorial review board for Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and as an ad-hoc reviewer for Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research, and Journal of Business Research. She held invited research presentations at numerous international schools, such as Florida State University, HEC Paris, ETH Zurich, and Copenhagen Business School.
Lena served as a consultant and research advisor to several firms in business-to-consumer as well as business-to-business industries. In 2016, she conducted a workshop for 60 executives on understanding and designing effective loyalty programs at the Center for Sales and Marketing Strategy. Lena has considerable experience in teaching relationship marketing, service management, consumer behavior, and experimental research to undergraduate and graduate students at the Universities of Rostock, Paderborn, and Wuppertal (temporary teaching appointments). In 2018, she won the teaching award of University of Paderborn’s Faculty of Business Administration and Economics for providing her students with an innovative, research-based learning approach.

Irina Kozlenkova, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:irinak@virginia.edu|Phone:+1-812-454-2351
Irina manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Customer Relationships and Healthcare Marketing
Irina V. Kozlenkova is an Assistant Professor of Commerce (Marketing) at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. She received her doctorate degree in Business Administration with a focus on Marketing from the University of Missouri. Dr. Kozlenkova’s research interests lie at the intersection of marketing strategy and healthcare. In the marketing strategy domain, she is currently researching the omnichannel communication behavior of firms and online relationship marketing. In the healthcare marketing arena, Dr. Kozlenkova’s current projects are examining how the turnover of healthcare professionals affects patient relationships, the efficacy of telemedicine, and off-label prescribing behavior of doctors.
Dr. Kozlenkova’s research has been published in top-level academic journals, including Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, among others. Dr. Kozlenkova is actively engaged with the practitioner community, particularly in the healthcare domain. Many of her projects are in collaboration with U.S. firms, as well as firms in Australia, India, and China.
She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and reviews for several other journals. She has taught classes in Marketing Principles, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Research and Analytics, Services Marketing, Marketing Management, and International Marketing at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Conor M. Henderson, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:conorh@uoregon.edu|Phone:+1-541-346-2839
Conor manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Customer Loyalty, Digital, and Sports Marketing.
Conor M. Henderson is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon. He teaches and researches marketing strategy with an emphasis on firms' strategies and tactics aimed at building enduring customer relationships. His research aims to uncover areas where firms go wrong and identify opportunities to increase customer value and financial performance. Through a multi-method approach, he investigates the strategic trade-offs across customers and over time in services, sports, and digital marketing contexts.
Dr. Henderson's research has been published in top-level research publications, including Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science¸ Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management.
He serves on the editorial review board of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and serves as a reviewer for several top-level journals. He has taught classes in Marketing Strategy, Sports Marketing, and Marketing Research.

Jordan W. Moffett, PhD
Research Fellow
Email:JWMoffett@uky.edu|Phone:337-802-5979
Jordan manages engagements with partners across multiple areas but specializes in Consumer Relationships and Marketing Strategy
Jordan Moffett is an assistant professor of Marketing at the University of Kentucky. Before joining the University of Kentucky, Moffett was a research fellow for the University of Washington’s Center for Sales and Marketing Strategy and completed her Ph.D. at Louisiana State University.
Moffett’s research focuses on relationship marketing theory and strategy with an emphasis in customer-firm communication in business relationships, facilitating customer engagement, and social media and video marketing strategies. Her research has appeared in Journal of Academy of Marketing Science and Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series, and has been presented at numerous marketing conferences. She has also co-authored a book chapter on customer engagement.