Valarie Zeithaml is an award-winning teacher and researcher, and an internationally recognized pioneer of services marketing. Dr. Zeithaml has researched customer expectations in more than 50 industries. She has consulted with service and product companies, including IBM, Kaiser Permanente, GE, John Hancock Financial Services, Aetna, AT&T, Metropolitan Life Insurance, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Allstate, and Procter and Gamble.For her work that is influencing the future direction of marketing, she was named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in the report on "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds."The American Marketing Association (AMA) named her a Marketing Legend in 2016. She was selected for its inaugural cohort of AMA Fellows for her significant contributions to the research, theory and practice of marketing and service to the AMA in 2015.In 2008, the AMA awarded her with the Paul D. Converse Award, which is granted every four years to individuals who have made outstanding and enduring contributions to marketing through journal articles, books or a body of work. She received the AMAs Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award in 2001.She received both the Innovative Contributor to Marketing Award from the Marketing Management Association and the Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science in 2004.Dr. Zeithaml is the author or co-author of seven prized books, including Driving Customer Equity: How Customer Lifetime Value is Reshaping Corporate Strategy, Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations, and this best-selling textbook. She received her PhD and MBA from the University of Maryland, and her BA from Gettysburg College.
