School induction to Marketing Hall of Fame

Two well-known Business School staff members have received important recognitions. Michael Groves has been inducted into the TVNZ New Zealand Marketing Hall of Fame, and Professor Peter Phillips has been made a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. See below.

Recognition 1:
"Complete marketing professional" inducted into Marketing Hall of Fame

Michael Groves, the Director of Operations of The University of Auckland Business School's Graduate School of Enterprise, has been inducted into the TVNZ New Zealand Marketing Hall of Fame.

At the induction, Richard Brookes, head of the judging panel and Associate Professor in Marketing at the Business School, introduced Mr Groves as "the 'complete marketing professional'… in that he has succeeded as a senior marketing executive; he has made a substantial and sustained contribution to executive education; and he has given so much of his time and expertise to community and professional services."

Mr Groves became Director of Operations two years ago and in enthusiastically taking up that challenge has won a Staff Excellence Award at both Faculty and University levels.

"Michael has also given so much back in community and professional service, ranging from Foundation Chairman of Glendowie College Board of Trustees when Tomorrow's Schools was introduced, to being on the judging panels for not just the Marketing, but also Sales, Design and Business Excellence Awards," Mr Brookes said at the ceremony.

NZ Marketing magazine, in reporting on the induction, hailed Mr Groves as being largely responsible for the competency of a number of New Zealand marketers.

"When I started out in marketing in 1967, I never dreamed that I would one day be honoured in this way and I am very proud of this award," says Mr Groves.

"I have enjoyed marketing as a career both as a practitioner and teacher. I have seen it change dramatically, particularly with the influence of computers and the internet. Another very pleasing change has been the recognition of marketing as a serious academic discipline widely taught at tertiary level."

Some 40 years ago, Mr Groves graduated from Otago University with an MA (Honours) degree and began a 14-year career with Cadbury Schweppes Hudson as a sales clerk, eventually becoming their New Zealand Marketing Manager. From 1981 to 1989, he worked with some of New Zealand's best-known firms, such as Unilever, Healtheries, Bluebird Foods and the New Zealand Meat Producers Board.

In 1989, he began teaching executive programmes at the Business School. He was soon appointed Director of the new Postgraduate Diploma in Business, which has been one of the most innovative and successful specialist executive programmes in New Zealand. He completed an MPhil in Marketing in 1995.

In 1996, Mr Groves became the Foundation Director of the Business School's new Short Courses programme, which he built into a multi-million dollar business with the vision "to lift the competency of the nation".

Recognition 2:
Mt Albert Grammar and Business School "old boy" recognised by British Academy

Peter C. B. Phillips, Distinguished Alumnus Professor in The University of Auckland Business School's Department of Economics, has been made a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

His selection was made in recognition of his academic achievements in the areas of econometrics, trends and transitions in economic activity, modeling of volatility in financial data, and automated model building for policy analysis and forecasting.

Corresponding Fellows are scholars who live outside the UK and who have attained high international standing in their areas of study. No more than 10 are elected each year.

"Election to Fellowship is the principal way in which the Academy recognises outstanding scholarly achievement. It comes as the culmination of a rigorous selection process," said the President of the British Academy, Baroness Onora O'Neill, in welcoming new Fellows.

At an admissions ceremony on 22 September, Professor Phillips will be invited to add his name to the Academy's historic roll, which includes the signatures of such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Kenneth Clark, John Maynard Keynes and Mortimer Wheeler.

"It is a wonderful tribute to be elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. I am delighted to share this honour with my colleagues at the Business School. We have a long-standing tradition of research excellence in economics and econometrics at the School and it is a joy for this to be acknowledged," says Professor Phillips.

Professor Phillips has held a part-time position at the Business School since 1992. He is also Sterling Professor of Economics and Professor of Statistics at Yale University, Distinguished Term Professor at Singapore Management University, and Adjunct Professor at the University of York. He is Founding Editor of the Cambridge Journal Econometric Theory and the Cambridge Advanced Textbook Series Themes in Modern Econometrics.

Among his many distinctions, Professor Phillips is a Distinguished Fellow of the New Zealand Association of Economists, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Journal of Econometrics, the American Statistical Association, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Modeling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He received the New Zealand Medal of Science and Technology in 1998, was NZIER/QANTAS Economist of the Year in 2000, and received the Biennial Medal of the Modeling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2003.

Professor Phillips went to Mt Albert Grammar in Auckland, studied economics, mathematics and applied mathematics at The University of Auckland, and was a junior lecturer in the Department of Economics before completing his PhD at the London School of Economics. He was appointed professor and chair of the Department of Econometrics and Social Statistics at the University of Birmingham at age 27 and moved to Yale University in 1979.

ENDS

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