Yashar Atefi, PhD
Biography at a Glance
Yashar Atefi is an associate professor of marketing and holds the Evelyn and Jay G. Piccinati Endowed Chair. He has served as the founding director and the co-director of the Sales Leadership Center. Prior to Daniels, he was the research director of the Professional Sales Institute at Louisiana State University. Prior to LSU, he was deeply involved with the Sales Excellence Institute at the University of Houston, where he also received his PhD.
Atefi is an expert in sales management and has helped sales organizations on a range of issues such as sales performance management, sales force incentives and ranking, pay structure, sales force training, negotiations, sales leadership, and implementing sales strategies. His research on various sales and marketing strategy topics has appeared in premier academic journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others
He has won several research and teaching awards including Excellence in Research Award by the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Selling and Sales Management Special Interest Group and Young Scholar Award by the AMA Organizational Frontlines Research group.
Education
PhD in Business Administration/Marketing, University of Houston
Awards and Honors
- 2024 Best Paper Award, AMA Winter Academic Conference, Sales Management & OFR Track
- 2024 Winner, AMA Organizational Frontlines Young Scholar Research Competition
- 2023 Emerging Scholar Award, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver
- 2022 Best Paper Award, AMA Summer Academic Conference, Sales Track
- 2022 Sales Education Foundation Grant
- 2021 Excellence in Research Award, AMA Selling and Sales Management SIG
- 2020 Invited Faculty Fellow, Marketing Strategy Consortium, University of Texas
- 2020 Keynote Speaker, World at Work Conference on Sales Compensation
- 2019 Excellence in Research Award, AMA Selling and Sales Management SIG
- 2019 Young Scholar Award, AMA Organizational Frontlines Research
- 2018 Invited Faculty Fellow, Marketing Strategy Consortium, University of Missouri
- 2017 Finalist, Mary Kay Dissertation Award Competition
- 2017 Outstanding Reviewer, International Journal of Research in Marketing
- 2017 Recognized Reviewer, International Journal of Research in Marketing
- 2016 Winner, AMA Sales SIG/USCA Dissertation Proposal Competition
- 2015 Best Paper Award, AMA Winter Academic Conference, Sales & CRM Track
- 2015 Sheth Foundation Grant
- 2015 Teaching Excellence Award, University of Houston
- 2014 Department of Marketing Commendation Letter for Excellence in Teaching
- 2011–2013 Presidential Graduate Fellowship, University of Houston