Assistant Professor Kimberly A. Whitler teaches the First Year Marketing core course. Kim's research area is Marketing Strategy with a focus on understanding how Board and C-Level roles, characteristics and decisions impact the firm's marketing performance.

Kim's research and articles have been published in academic journals, including The Journal of Retailing, the Academy of Management Journal and The Marketing Science Institute Series as well as leading managerial media. As a contributor for Forbes and CMO.com("CMO Matters"), she has authored over 100 articles related to C-level marketing issues, in addition to publishing in Ad Age, The CMO Council, PeerSphere, Chief Executive, and HBR.org. She has been named one of the Top 100 Marketing Professors on Twitter and has presented at industry, executive and academic conferences including the CMO Club, the CMO Exchange, the Marketing Forum USA, the American Marketing Association Educator's Conference, and the Academy of Management Conference.

Kim's professional career covers nearly 20 years in Marketing and General Management positions, including executive positions within the Consumer Packaged Goods and Retailing industries. As a brand management executive for Procter and Gamble at their Cincinnati headquarters and in Eastern Europe, she helped build major brands including Tide, Zest, Era, Safeguard, Bounce, Downy, Tix, Vizir, Biomat, Moher and Ariel, among others. Beyond P&G, Kim was the chief marketing officer (CMO) of David's Bridal, the CMO of Beazer Homes, the GM of the Breakfast Division at Aurora Foods, and an Officer for PetSmart leading the company's marketing strategy division.

Prior to joining Darden, Kim earned her MS and Ph.D. from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business where she won the William Panschar Teaching Award for Associate Instruction and the 2013-2014 Outstanding Doctoral Student Award for the Kelley School of Business. She attended the U.S. Air Force Academy, received a BA in Psychology and Business Administration from Eureka College, and earned an MBA from the University of Arizona, receiving the George H. Brown Outstanding Marketing Scholar Award. With a personal passion for education, Kim led the creation and funding of the PETsMART Distinguished Chair in Retailing at the University of Arizona and served on the Board of Trustees for Eureka College.

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