Stephen Burnett

Joining the Kellogg School faculty in 1981 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing, Steve Burnett is currently Professor of Strategy.  From 2003 to 2011, Steve served as the Associate Dean of Executive Education and was responsible for the School's extensive portfolio of certificate or non-degree executive programs as well as the James L. Allen Center, the School's 150 bedroom executive education facility.

Professor Burnett has taught in the Kellogg's Advanced Executive Program since 1983 and became the program's Academic Director in 1987. The AEP, started in 1951, is one of the world's oldest senior management programs. Steve also was the Academic Director of the School's pioneering International Advanced Executive Program at Burgenstock, Switzerland, from 1985 through 1991. He founded and directed for many years the Kellogg Management Institute, another of the School's general management offerings.

The Kellogg School invented the custom or company-specific executive program category in 1973, and Professor Burnett has played an active role in developing and popularizing the notion that custom executive programs can be powerful forces for implementing organizational change. In addition to lecturing and writing on custom programs, he has designed, directed, and taught in dozens of Kellogg School custom offerings for such companies as Ernst & Young, General Electric, International Paper, General Motors, Goodyear, Motorola, ExxonMobil, Exelon, USG, Honeywell, R.R. Donnelley, the Zurich Insurance Group, and many others.

Professor Burnett's research, teaching, and consulting interests focus on the interface of corporate, business, and market strategy. He taught marketing, business/corporate strategy, and general management in the School's full- and part-time MBA programs for many years and now teaches extensively in its full range of executive offerings, including custom and open enrollment programs as well as in the School's EMBA programs in Evanston, Hong Kong, Germany, and Israel. He has lectured, conducted workshops, and advised top management on marketing and strategy issues in many countries for some of the world's best known firms, examples include: Allstate Insurance, Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cadbury Schweppes, Caterpillar, CIGNA Companies, Force Protection, HP, IBM, Navistar, O'Melveny & Myers, the Travelers, UOP, and Young & Rubicam.

His research on marketing and strategy has appeared in Research in Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Strategic Planning Management, Kellogg on Integrated Marketing, and other publications. His writing on management education has been published in the Harvard Business Review, the Bricker Bulletin, the Financial Times, and Advances in Strategic Management. He has also served as a McKinsey judge for the Harvard Business Review and supervised numerous case studies.

Professor Burnett is a summa cum laude graduate of Christian Brothers University, where he received the Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key. He holds a master's and doctorate in business administration from Indiana University and as a doctoral candidate was the E.W. Kelley Research Fellow. He is a member of several professional and honorary societies, including Alpha Kappa Psi and Beta Gamma Sigma.

Education DBA, 1980, Marketing, Indiana University

MBA, 1975, Indiana University

BS, 1973, Christian Brothers College, Summa Cum Laude

Academic Positions Associate Dean of Executive Education, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2003-2011

Faculty Director and Director of Custom Executive Programs, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1985-2003

Other Professional Experience , Private Consulting Practice, 1985-present

Education Academic Positions Other Professional Experience