Ralph is the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, and Professor of Marketing in the Smeal College of Business Administration at Penn State. He is driving the growth of the ISBM as the leading academic center devoted to advancing knowledge and practice in Business-to-Business marketing worldwide. The ISBM is supported by 65 major firms, and a network of over 100 researchers, all focused on B-to-B.

Since 1997, Ralph has been working with B-to-B firms in building better, more profitable business marketing practice by creating direct connections from practitioners to leading-edge researchers, through the design and implementation of educational programs spanning the practice of B-to-B, and in building networked communities of learning. He has worked extensively with ISBM Member firms including DuPont, Deloitte, Xerox, Honeywell, Timken, Dow, Arkema, Rohm and Haas, IBM, GE, Alfa Laval, National Starch and Chemical, Parker Hannifin, Swagelok, PPG, and others in the Fortune 500.

Ralph is a regular columnist for Marketing Management magazine, and is active in Executive Education, as well as the Smeal College MBA program, where he received the “Excellence in Teaching Award” the MBA class for 2002 and 2007. He teaches B-to-B Marketing, Strategic Brand Management, and Integrated Market Communications. His research focus is on tracking the trends shaping business markets, Business-to-Business brands and ingredient brands.

Before joining Penn State, Ralph spent 23 years in B-to-B and consumer marketing, and established a “Virtual University” for marketing at Texas Instruments. He has served as V.P. of Market Communications and Design for TI worldwide, and leader of the TI.com web Team.

Ralph developed the “DLP” branding program for TI (TI’s first ingredient brand) and worked on landmark products (including TI’s “Speak and Spell”, and the TI-30 calculator).

His articles can be found at www.isbm.org, and www.ralpholiva.com.

Ralph holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Solid State Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a B.S. in Physics from Fordham University. He lives in State College, PA with his wife Kat, and their sons Matthew and Christopher.