Tomas Hult

Dr. Tomas Hult is the Byington Endowed Chair, Professor of Marketing and International Business, and Director of the International Business Center (IBC) in the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University (John W. Byington was a former president of the NPD Group Worldwide Inc.). He has been at Michigan State University since January 2001, and has his faculty position in the Department of Marketing but also teaches for the Department of Supply Chain Management and the Department of Management. IBC is one of 17 centers designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a center of excellence in international business and trade (i.e., CIBER). On behalf of the State of Michigan, IBC serves as a Regional Export Network (REN) for 24 counties in mid-Michigan (Regions 5, 6, 7, and 9). Dr. Hult's expertise and research focus are on international business, marketing strategy, supply chain management, and strategic management. Dr. Hult leverages this expertise on his radio show, globalEDGE Business Beat on the Michigan Business Network, where he interviews top business and academic leaders.

Previously, Dr. Hult held positions as Eli Broad Professor of International Business; Professor of Marketing and Supply Chain Management; and Associate Dean in MSU's Eli Broad College of Business. MSU's Broad College of Business is consistently ranked among the top 15 schools for both U.S. graduate and undergraduate public business programs. The Broad College is also consistently among the top 10 institutions in international business research. As one of the largest business schools in the U.S., the Broad College has more than 7,400 students, is accredited by AACSB, and is a member of the Global Business School Network. Michigan State University is one of 62 members of the prestigious Association of American Universities.

Dr. Hult has been the Executive Director of the Academy of International Business (AIB) and President of the AIB Foundation since 2004. He is President and has been a Board Member of the Sheth Foundation since 2010, and board member of the International Trade Center of Mid-Michigan and the Economic Club of Greater Lansing. Dr. Hult also serves on the Lansing Regional Sister Cities Commission (The Mayor of Lansing appointed Tomas Hult to the Commission in 2014). Dr. Hult was President of the coalition of CIBER schools in 2011-2012 and 2015-2016, which are funded by the U.S. Department of Education, and he serves as the political liaison for the CIBER network with the Coalition for International Education. IBC currently has grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, and contracts with the State of Michigan (MEDC) and Academy of International Business (AIB). Dr. Hult has been responsible for bringing in some $15 million to Michigan State University in external funding and some $4 million for the Academy of International Business.

MSU's International Business Center is a strategic affiliate of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDoC). Since 2012, Dr. Hult serves on the USDoC affiliated District Export Council, and MSU's International Business Center maintains the web presence of both the West and East DECs in Michigan (with IBC member Dr. Tunga Kiyak serving on the East DEC). At MSU, Tomas serves on the university's International Studies and Programs Executive Committee, Honorary Degree Committee, and the Broad College of Business Senior Administrator group, among others. He regularly works with some 25 internationally oriented units on the MSU campus, and IBC has facilitated more than 12,000 firms nationwide going international since 2006, with more than 2,000 firms from the State of Michigan.

Dr. Tomas Hult is a well-known speaker and executive trainer on global supply chain management, global strategy, and marketing strategy. In a short video interview, Tomas discusses his global strategy training. He regularly speaks at high profile events (e.g., European Commission, Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum, United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development, U.S. Department of Education, World Investment Forum) and publishes op-ed articles (e.g., Time, Fortune, Fortune, World Economic Forum, The Conversation). Some of his trade books include: Second Shift (2016), featured in a "Talks at Google," with David Hollister, Ray Tadgerson, and David Closs (published by McGraw Hill Professional) and Global Supply Chain Management (2014) with David Closs and David Frayer (published by McGraw Hill Professional). He is also co-author of a number of academic textbooks, including the #1 market-share leading Global Business Today 9e (2016) and International Business 11e (2017) with Charles W. L. Hill (published by McGraw Hill Education) as well as Partial Least Squares (PLS) Path Modeling (2014, 2017) with Joe Hair, Christian Ringle, and Marko Sarstedt (published by Sage). His current book project with George Yip is an updated version of their Total Global Strategy (2012) book to be published in 2018 as Global Strategic Management: A Total Global Strategy Approach to International Competitiveness (by Chicago Business Press).

In research, Hult is one of the world's most cited scholars in international business, supply chain management, and marketing. He was ranked the 75th "most cited scientist in economics and business" (and 3rd in marketing) in the world by Thomson Reuters in their Essential Science Indicators covering a period from 1997 to 2007. In a 2012 study by Aguinis et al. (in the Academy of Management Perspectives), Hult was 6th among influential scholars who received their degrees since 1991 (he received his degree in 1995). Based on a University of Minnesota study, Tomas was 14th in citations among the worldwide marketing professorate in 2013-2014, and MSU's marketing department is Number 7 and 14, respectively, in studies published in the Australasian Journal of Marketing (2015) and by University of Minnesota (2014). Overall, his research has been cited some 37,000 times per Google Scholar, making him currently the top cited scholar in Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business.

Professor Hult is an elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business (one of 91 scholars in the world bestowed with this honor and one of only 5 marketing scholars). He was also selected the 2016 Academy of Marketing Science / CUTCO-Vector Distinguished Marketing Educator as the 2016 top marketing professor in the world for career scholarly career achievements. Dr. Hult was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science from 2009 to 2015, a top-50 Financial Times business journal. He is serving as Associate Editor of Journal of Marketing; Consulting Editor for Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS); and Consulting Editor for Journal of Supply Chain Management; having previously served as Associate Editor of JIBS, Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. He also serves on or has served previous terms on the review boards of the Journal of Marketing, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Retailing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Marketing, and International Marketing Review, among others.

Dr. Tomas Hult jointly with his wife Laurie Hult, MD, members of the John A. Hannah donor society for personal financial contributions to Michigan State University. A dual citizen of Sweden and the United States, Tomas Hult has resided in the U.S since 1987 and been at Michigan State University since January 2001. Tomas and Laurie have two children (Daniel and Isabelle) who are also Swedish-US dual citizens. Dr. Hult holds visiting professorships in the International Business group of his native Uppsala University, Sweden (since 2013) and the International Business division of Leeds University, UK (since 2010). Michigan State, Uppsala, and Leeds are all ranked in the top 10 in the world in international business research (e.g., Management International Review 2014). With a background in mechanical engineering, Tomas worked for AB Uppsalabuss (Uppsala, Sweden) and Holmen AB (Hallsta, Sweden) prior to entering academe.