Thomas J. Steenburgh

Education:  B.S., Boston University; M.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D., Yale University

Tom Steenburgh holds the Richard S. Reynolds Professorship in Business Administration at the the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. He also serves the School as senior associate dean for faculty development. He is the course head for the First Year Marketing course in the MBA program and is the faculty chair for Strategic Sales Management program in Executive Education. Prior to joining Darden, he taught at the Harvard Business School, where he was the faculty chair of the Business-to-Business Marketing Strategy program in Executive Education.

Steenburgh is an expert in business-to-business marketing and sales, and he believes that academics should engage with business leaders to solve real-world problems. He co-founded the Thought Leadership on the Sales Profession Conference, which provides a unique opportunity for leading academics and senior business leaders to discuss current issues in sales. He frequently speaks about his research at companies and in public forums, including the Global Siemens One Conference, the Money Management Institute, the Sales Management Association, and the Strategic Accounts Management Association.

His research analyzes the effectiveness of sales and marketing strategies. He has worked on issues such as "Do lump-sum bonuses motivate salespeople to work harder or to play timing games with their orders?" and "Should firms use sales and marketing actions to manage earnings?" Steenburgh's research has won several awards for its influence on business practice. His Harvard Business Review article "Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works" won the Wachovia Award for Research Aimed at the Practicing Manager. He also won the Neil Rackham Research Dissemination Award for the broad impact of his sales research.

Steenburgh is the author of numerous case studies that are taught in leading business schools around the world. This work primarily focuses on managerial issues in professional selling and sales force management. His case study on Hubspot is part of the HBS Premiere Case Collection and his study on EMC has been reprinted in textbooks.

Steenburgh holds a master's degree in statistics from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in marketing from Yale University. Before returning to academics, he held several positions in marketing and operations at the Xerox Corporation. His last position was in incentive strategy.