Science marketing expert to speak at COBE Global Capitalism event

Hamid Ghanadan

Hamid Ghanadan

Hamid Ghanadan, founder and president of the Linus Group, will be the featured speaker at the RU Global Capitalism Distinguished Speaker Series, sponsored by BB&T, on Friday, April 5.

The presentation is the sixth in the Global Capitalism Distinguished Speaker Series, an ongoing collaboration between BB&T and the Radford University College of Business and Economics (COBE) to stimulate thought and discussion about capitalism, the tenets of free enterprise and the best practices of successful organizations. This spring's free public event will be at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Hurlburt Student Center on the RU campus.

The Linus Group, based in Emeryville, Calif., is a marketing firm that collaborates with science companies on the successful commercialization of scientific products.

"The Radford University community has a wonderful opportunity to learn from a creative business leader whose specialty deals with many of today's most exciting challenges and opportunities," COBE Dean Faye W. Gilbert said. "It will be an enlightening look into marketing as it applies to science."

Ghanadan is the author of "Persuading Scientists: Marketing to the World's Most Skeptical Audience." In it, he frames how scientists make decisions, how they consume information and how marketers can positively influence these decisions through development and management of the right information, delivered at the right time. According to Ghanadan, the model is applicable for marketing and communication with any highly technical audience.

"Professionals with a scientific training use a unique decision-making rubric that makes them especially skeptical toward biased information. Marketing to this group can be quite challenging," he said.

Trained as a biochemist, Ghanadan has worked with more than 50 companies in 16 years with the Linus Group. He is also the editor and author of "Linus Report," a publication focused exclusively on current trends in science marketing.

He joins a distinguished group of previous participants in the BB&T-COBE series: MaryRose Carosia and Theresa Werner of S&P Capital IQ; Kevin Daley, a past vice president at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and founder of Communispond; former BB&T Chair and Chief Executive Officer John Allison; Jason Bingham, vice president, Central Territory of North America, for Ingersoll Rand; and Keith Shields, senior statistician and analytic development lead for Marketing Associates in Detroit.

For more information on the event, call the COBE office at (540) 831-5382.

Learn more about Radford University at www.radford.edu.

Mar 26, 2013
Don Bowman
(540) 831-7523
dbowman@radford.edu