Buck Weaver Award

The Buck Weaver Award is given to distinguished scholars and practitioners who have excelled in the achievement theory and practice of marketing science.

The nominations for this year's award are due on March 15, 2025. Please refer to this document for further details.

Henry Grady “Buck” Weaver (1889-1949) (B.S. 1911, Georgia Tech) was Director, Customer Research, at General Motors where he was credited with developing the use of survey questionnaires to investigate customer preferences for automobiles. This award was initially given by MIT-Sloan before moving to the stewardship of ISMS.

Last year’s selection committee was Raji Srinivasan (ISMS Secretary; Texas-McCombs) (chair), Kusum Ailawadi (ISMS Part-President; Dartmouth-Tuck), Steve Cohen (past winner; in4mation insights), Lan Lou (ISMS VP Practice; USC-Marshall), and Rick Staelin (past winner; Duke-Fuqua).

The 2024 Buck Weaver Award was presented to Bari Harlam at the 2024 Marketing Science Conference.  Bari Harlam (PhD 1990, Pennsylvania) is a successful C-suite business executive, board member, marketer, educator, author, entrepreneur. A pioneer in customer loyalty & experience, personalized & digital marketing, and data analytics. Her strategic consumer focus and business acumen has driven enormous value for several companies including, CVS Health, Swipely, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Hudson Bay Company. She is a co-Founder, TROUBLE. She has served on several boards including RITE AID, OneWater Marine, Aterian (formerly Mohawk), Eastern Bank, Champion Pet Foods. Her early career included marketing professor at Columbia and the University of Rhode Island.

 

Previous winners include Paul Green, Vince Barabba (Head of US Census, previous Head of Marketing Research at Kodak and General Motors), Gerald Zaltman, John Little, David Aaker, Jerry Wind, Don Lehmann, Magid Abraham (co-founder of ComScore), Glen Urban, John Hauser, V. Srinivasan, Dominique Hanssens, Steven Cohen (Founding Partner, In4mation Insights), Gary Lilien, John Roberts, Michel Wedel, Roland Rust, Gerard Tellis, and Richard Staelin.

Award Nomination Process

The Buck Weaver Award is given annually by the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS).  The award honors distinguished scholars and practitioners who have excelled in the achievement of rigor and relevance in marketing science.  The award is not restricted to ISMS members.  

The committee, constituted as per the awards protocol, consists of the ISMS Secretary (Chair), ISMS Past President, ISMS VP of Practice. and two Past Buck Weaver Award Winners.

The criteria for the award are as follows:

  • Lifetime contribution to theory and practice in the development of rigor and relevance in marketing science.

  • Evidence of theory contribution can include scholarly publication as well as being a catalyst for the generation of scholarly work.

  • Evidence of practice contribution can include an important role in implementing marketing science in practice.

Nominations are encouraged from ISMS members as well as from members of the selection committee and should be submitted electronically in PDF format to the Secretary of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science before midnight EST March 15, 2024.  The nomination must be for an individual. Nominations for considering more than one person jointly are not permissible. The nomination must include a strong justification that highlights the relevant achievements of the nominee to marketing science practice.