Rob Nelson

Adjunct Faculty

Faculty

Stuart School of Business

Rob Nelson is an innovative, results-driven leader with more than 20 years of global experience in marketing and communications, strategic business development, innovation, solution-product development, management, consulting, and operations for high Fortune 100 corporations, startup/pre-IPO’s (including Amazon.com pre-IPO), and international organizations. His industry experience includes healthcare, insurance, banking, retail, high-tech, not-for-profit, higher education, manufacturing, some financial services, and a variety of others. Nelson has an established record of establishing and implementing a full spectrum of initiatives that help organizations achieve performance transformation and deliver strategic, operational, and financial results that ensure market leadership.

Active in the academic and entrepreneurship community, Nelson teaches marketing, branding, strategic marketing, and strategy and business innovation at the M.B.A./master’s levels where his highly-regarded work involves live projects with companies including many innovative and award-winning startups. This is in addition to his work in the academic/university setting and research collaborations with universities on programs.

Prior to joining RCG Global Services, where he is head of Intelligent Innovation as well as Healthcare Transformation Solutions, Nelson was global portfolio marketing leader for GE Healthcare’s Analytics and Artificial Intelligence business with responsibility for growth with a focus on analytics software, artificial intelligence, and consulting for a $16 billion business portfolio. At GE he also led service marketing and solution management for GE Healthcare’s IT business with a focus on analytics and consulting.

Nelson has also served both as a private consultant and senior manager and executive, leading a dozen different organizations and multiple teams and projects for Fortune 30 corporations, national and international nonprofits, and privately held firms, including GE Healthcare, Quorum Health Resources, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) as chief marketing officer and head of business development, Motorola, and IBM. He also served in cross-functional roles at Amazon.com in pre-IPO days. Prior, Nelson served as both enlisted and officer ranks with more than a decade of service in the United States Navy in communications, intelligence, surface warfare, and combat logistics.

Nelson is also faculty at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business, where he teaches marketing, strategy, and business innovation. He and his student consulting teams have helped dozens of startup companies as well as large, well-known firms. He is also marketing faculty at the Jack Welch Management Institute (JWMI) and awarded Associate Professor of the Year with continuous NPS scores of 100. He is also a guest speaker and international guest faculty (remote/U.S. experience) for the Beacon Program in People’s Republic of China as well as the Executive M.B.A. Recap for the University of Sao Paulo Brazil.

Nelson holds a Doctor of Business Administration in Strategic Marketing from Grenoble Ecole de Management with dissertation on the implementation of market orientation strategic marketing involving the transformation of organizations to deliver higher performance. His M.B.A. in Strategic Marketing is from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in political science from the University of Oklahoma. He holds certificates in Global Leadership and Strategy from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and is pragmatic marketing and trained in Miller Herman conceptual selling. He also holds certificates in Artificial Intelligence and Digital Marketing from Kellogg, as well as in Innovation from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University.

In his personal time, Rob practices mixed martial arts, including Muay Thai Kick Boxing (national champion 2020) and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and enjoys hiking, biking, sailing, kayaking, and spending time with his Vizsla dog Zieke.