Robert Grant

Rob Grant brings both academic learning and his diverse business experiences to help students understand how to apply the basic principles of marketing taught in the first year MBA courses. He has been an executive with five Fortune 200 companies where he helped build more than a dozen of America’s favorite brands, from Procter & Gamble’s Charmin and Luvs Diapers, to Schick and 125-year old Listerine which he rebranded as an anti-plaque fighter. More recently, Rob applied his branding and strategy skills to grow financial service businesses for divisions of JPMorgan Chase and American General Life. When he is not teaching at the Jones Business School, Rob is employed as Vice-President of Marketing and Business Strategy for RiceTec, America’s leading breeder of rice seed for farmers, and marketer of specialty consumer rice brands, including Texmati.

Rob has long had a passion for sharing his business knowledge with students. He has served as a guest lecturer at Columbia, Chicago and Indiana Graduate Business Schools. An opportunity to work with Stanford’s Jerry Porras (author of ‘Built to Last’) provided a year ‘sabbatical’ where Rob explored how branding links up with business strategy. Rob is currently completing his sixth year teaching at Rice University. He reports being honored and humbled to have the opportunity to do so at such an outstanding institution as Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

Rob is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Union College where he received his BA with distinction in Economics. He earned his MBA in Marketing and Accounting from Columbia University. Rob’s interests include swimming, golf and the Houston Symphony where he served on its Board of Governors and for which he was given the “Marketing Excellence” award in recognition of his contributions.

Teaching Interests: 

-Marketing Strategy
-Business Strategy
-Branding
-Advertising as it relates to branding and marketing strategy
-Social media and its role in growing revenue