Professor Jenny Darroch Recognized as a Finalist for the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Women Making A Difference Awards

Jenny Darroch, professor of marketing at The Drucker School of Management, was recognized by The Los Angeles Business Journal as a finalist for its 22nd Annual Women Making a Difference Awards, which honors women of outstanding achievement in the Los Angeles community. Named a finalist in its “Rising Star” category, she specializes in marketing strategy, in particular market definition and market segmentation with a special interest in marketing to women.

Darroch’s publications appear in leading journals such as the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Small Business Management. One of her career highlights was having the opportunity to co-edit a special issue of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science: A Tribute to Peter Drucker in 2009 with George Day and Stan Slater. Her new book, Why Marketing to Women Doesn’t Work, will be released this summer and focuses on why current marketing initiatives that are directed toward women are failing and how companies can overcome this by redefining their marketing approach.

“Professor Darroch’s dedication to her students, women in business, women in academia, and her research distinguishes her as an influential and valuable member of our faculty,” said Lawrence A. Crosby, dean of the Drucker School of Management.

Darroch has developed her own approach to market segmentation that draws on the theory of effectuation, that is, she firmly believes that many answers lay within organizations and by “changing the conversation in the market” organizations open up new ways of competing. This approach influences Darroch’s teaching, research agenda, and consulting assignments and inspired her signature course “Transforming and Creating Markets to Generate Growth,” which she has delivered to audiences around the world.

Prior to joining the Drucker School faculty, she was the director of entrepreneurship and a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She has taught in numerous executive education programs in New Zealand and as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. Professor Darroch has also managed the marketing curriculum for a large MBA program in New Zealand, developed and launched a master’s degree in entrepreneurship, and was instrumental in developing support structures to allow the commercialization of science and intellectual property from universities.