Mohanbir Sawhney
McCormick Foundation Chair of Technology
Clinical Professor of Marketing
Director of the Center for Research in Technology & Innovation
Prof. Sawhney is a globally recognized authority on product strategy and artificial intelligence in business, with contributions spanning teaching, research, executive advising, keynote speaking, and venture creation. His areas of focus include business impact of AI, business innovation, AI-native marketing, and AI-native product strategy.
At Kellogg, he teaches cutting-edge AI courses for MBA students, including AI-Native Marketing and AI-First Product Management, as well as Leading Product Organizations and TechVenture India for Executive MBA students. He is a pioneer in online executive education, having created ten online Executive Education courses that have enrolled more than 40,000 participants from 120 countries since 2018. These programs include Digital Marketing Strategies, Product Strategy, AI Applications for Growth, AI Strategies for Business Transformation, and the Kellogg Chief Product Officer Program. The AI Strategies for Business Transformation program has enrolled over 7,500 participants, making it one of the leading online AI executive programs from a business school. He has also co-authored bestselling simulation games including DigiStrat (2021), CloudStrat (2020), and PhotoWars. He is currently developing several AI-native simulations including EYEWALL (Crisis Leadership), PERORIX (communication and influence) and KICKFIELD (omnichannel marketing strategy).
Prof. Sawhney has written eight management books as well as dozens of influential articles in leading academic journals and managerial publications. His latest book, The Return on AI: From Promise to Profit in the Age of Intelligent Business (2026), co-authored with Ashwin Mittal, addresses how organizations can measure and improve business value from AI investments. His earlier book, The Sentient Enterprise: The Evolution of Business Decision Making, was published in October 2017 and was on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. He has also written a book of poetry, Love, Longing and Loneliness (2014). His research has been published in leading journals including California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Management Science, Marketing Science, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is trade press articles have appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, and CIO Magazine. He also publishes The Hidden Weave on Substack, where he writes on AI strategy, leadership, and Eastern wisdom.
He has authored over 60 case studies, including 21 bestsellers and two classics, in the Harvard Business School Publishing catalog. In 2021, he was ranked by The Case Centre as 23rd in the list of top academic case writers in the world. He has won several awards for his teaching and research, including the 2026 Case Centre Award in Marketing, the 2006 Sidney Levy Award for Teaching Excellence at the Kellogg School, the 2005 runner-up for Best Paper in the Journal of Interactive Marketing, the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper published in California Management Review, and the L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg in 1998. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 2011 and the Global Alumni Recognition Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2021.
Prof. Sawhney advises senior leadership teams on AI strategy and transformation and delivers high-impact AI keynotes across industries including healthcare, financial services, insurance, legal services, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, life sciences, and professional services. His speaking and consulting clients include Accenture, Adobe Systems, Amgen, AT&T, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Commvault, Dell, Entergy, EY, Fidelity Investments, General Mills, Google, Honeywell, Infosys, Jenner & Block, Jones Lang LaSalle, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg Company, Kellanova, Kenvue, KPMG, Mars, McDonald's, Meta, Merck, Microsoft, Planview, Raytheon Missile Systems, Roche, SAP, Salesforce, Smartsheet, Sony, Teradata, and Vanguard.
Prof. Sawhney is a co-founder of Pedagogix, an early-stage startup that is developing AI-native pedagogical platforms and simulation products. He has served on the board of directors of companies including EXL and Reliance Jio, and advises a number of early-stage technology startups. He is a Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State University, and a member of the Advisory Board at Chicago Innovation as well as the Sikh Research Institute.
Prof. Sawhney holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
- Business Innovation
- Digital Marketing
- Enterprise Analytics
- Product Management
- Business Innovation
- Technology Marketing
- Marketing in a Digital World
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MA, PhD, 1993, Marketing, University of Pennsylvania
PGDM, 1987, Marketing, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
BT, 1985, Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi -
Associate Dean, Digital Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2020-present
Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation Clinical Professor of Technology, Center for Research in Technology & Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern Unviersity, 1999-present
Assistant Professor, Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1993-1999 -
Best Case Study in Marketing 2026 Award for "Sephora: Transforming the Beauty Experience through Technology", The Case Center
2026 Best Case Study in Marketing for the Sephora Case (The Case Center), The Case Center
Lifetime Academic Achievement Award, IMT, Ghaziabad, India
Global Alumni Recognition Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India
23rd in list of bestselling case authors in the world, The Case Centre, 2020-2021
23rd in list of bestselling case authors in the world, The Case Center, 2021
Fellow, Institute for Study of Business Markets, Penn State University, Penn State University
Thinkers50 India - 50 Most Influential Thinkers of Indian Origin, Institute of Competitiveness
Fellow, World Economic Forum, 2002
Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
Named One of the Worlds Best Known Indian-Origin Gurus, Times of India
Accenture Award, California Management Review, 2001
L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management, 1998
Leading Product Organizations (MKTGX-924-0)
Leading Product Organizations
TechVenture India (INTLX-918-0)
"Tech Venture India (2 credits) is an experiential learning course focusing on technology trends and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. The course begins with a three-day intensive classroom experience in Evanston consisting of lectures and guest sessions on key technology domains like Cloud Computing, Mobile Technologies, Analytics and Machine Learning. This is followed by a week-long field study trip and a research project to provide students with the concepts as well as real-world experience with technologies that are shaping emerging markets like India as well as entrepreneurial opportunities in technology markets. The field trip will include visits to multinational technology companies, Indian technology companies, technology startup companies and government officials. This course is of special significance for Executive MBA students who may be contemplating a mid-career move into entrepreneurial ventures as it will provide a first-hand look at some of the most exciting startup ventures and opportunities in India and beyond. Student teams will be asked to choose a research topic of their choice related to technology trends in emerging markets, and they will be required to produce a publishable-quality white paper on their project. Course Objectives: Provide students with a deep understanding of key technology trends and their impact on global business. Expose students to emerging markets as “laboratories and back-offices for the world†as sources of technology innovation and talent for developed markets. Expose students to first-hand experience with technology companies in emerging markets– from large multinationals to early-stage startups. Compel students to develop expertise in a specialized domain and provide them with the experience and skills of writing a publishing quality research paper. Enhance the presence of Kellogg in India through interactions with alumni, key technology business leaders and influencers. "
Leading Product Organizations (MKTG-924-5)
This course is available only for students in the Evening & Weekend Programs
Field Study (MKTG-498-0)
Field Studies include those opportunities outside of the regular curriculum in which a student is working with an outside company or non-profit organization to address a real-world business challenge for course credit under the oversight of a faculty member.
AI-Native Marketing: The Intelligent Marketing Operating System (MKTG-468-0)
I designed this course with a simple premise. Most companies have bolted AI onto marketing without changing how marketing really works. The tools improve isolated tasks, but not the system they plug into. A generative AI tool may write great ad copy that the personalization engine never sees. A predictive model can flag high-propensity customers that the campaign execution platform can't reach in time. The tools work. The system doesn't. This course teaches you to architect marketing as an AI-native system. The course is based on a framework I have developed, called the Intelligent Marketing Operating System (I-MOS) that treats marketing as a continuous, connected system rather than a collection of disconnected campaigns and tools. Think of it the way you think about the operating system on your phone: it doesn't do any single task, but without it, nothing runs reliably. I-MOS has two dimensions. The first is seven marketing workflows that define what marketing must accomplish: understand the customer (Sense, Focus), design customer journeys and campaigns (Design, Orchestrate); and execute and optimize the campaigns (Attract, Execute, Learn). The second is an operating architecture that makes the workflows run as a connected whole. We will get into the architecture in detail during the course. For now, the key insight is simple: the output of each workflow feeds the next, and the system learns continuously. Two things make this moment different from anything that came before in marketing. Generative AI can now produce and personalize content at a speed that was unimaginable two years ago. And Agentic AI offers software agents that can reason, plan, and act on their own within boundaries you set. Generative AI gave marketing a powerful new engine. Agentic AI provides the nervous system that connects sense to action to learning. Together, they make a true marketing operating system possible for the first time. The course is anchored in Jobs-to-be-Done: the functional and emotional needs that drive customer behavior. Every workflow starts with the customer, not the technology. I-MOS ensures that the system's efficiency never replaces customer insight. This is an important concept I call the Insight Gap, which is the strategic judgment that only humans can provide. This course will equip you with both analytical skills (technology, data, decision logic) and creative expertise (content, storytelling, brand voice). The course includes seven original case studies, a hands-on lab, and a Capstone Project where your team will design an AI-First Marketing Playbook for a real brand. This is a greenfield course. Every case and module was created in 2026.
Product Management for Technology Companies: An Entrepreneurial Perspective (MKTG-458-0)
Product Management for Technology Companies provides the conceptual frameworks, tools and hands-on experience to become successful product managers in technology companies. With a holistic and entrepreneurial perspective of product management, the course provides an end-to-end view of all major aspects of product management and product marketing. Topics include product opportunity analysis, product discovery, business model design, agile product development, go-to-market strategy, whole offer design, ecosystem management, product planning and managing products as an ongoing business. This comprehensive approach prepares students for various product-focused roles, including product management, product marketing, product planning and business development. The case studies and assignments in the course are all developed at Kellogg and designed specifically for the course. Assignments include a wireframing assignment, a SaaS economics quantitative assignment and a product roadmapping assignment. The case studies and course content reflect a balance between product management in large technology companies versus smaller technology startup companies.
Global Initiatives in Mgmt GIM (INTL-473-20)
Spring Session
Global Initiatives in Management (GIM) (INTL-473-0)
All FT GIM classes will hold a final, mandatory class session. Please refer to each class's syllabi for the date and time.
Global Initiatives in Management (GIM) is an international experiential learning course designed to provide students with an introduction to the unique business opportunities, management practices and market dynamics of a specific region or global industry. The course combines in-class lectures, reading discussions and case studies during the winter quarter with ten days of international field research over spring break. Immersed in the culture and language of their host countries, students will have the opportunity to meet with local business and government leaders, conduct interviews and collect data for their group research projects, and experience some of the unique social and cultural facets of the region. Final presentations and written research reports are due in spring quarter after completion of the overseas portion of the class. Each class section is taught by a faculty member with deep knowledge of the region or industry and supported by an advisor from the Kellogg staff who assists students in planning the field experience. Students are financially responsible for their travel costs, and financial aid is available to those who qualify.
