Wendy W. Moe Joins Maryland Smith Senior Leadership Team

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (Jan. 28, 2019) — The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business has appointed professor Wendy W. Moe as associate dean of master’s programs. In her new role she will serve on the dean’s senior leadership team and oversee all MBA and specialty master’s programs.

“What I’m really excited about is the school’s focus on data-driven decision making,” says Moe, who is also Dean’s Professor of Marketing and co-director of the Smith Analytics Consortium. “Data analytics will infuse all of business, regardless if you work in finance, marketing or any other field. These skills are in short supply and high demand.”

Moe’s passion for data science started near Chicago, where she grew up and earned an invitation to study business at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. She eventually earned a Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts and PhD from the Ivy League school.

A banking internship gave Moe industry experience during her undergraduate program in finance and marketing. Later, she worked in marketing research at Nielsen and earned an MBA at Georgetown University.

She also helped launch NetConversions, an early innovator in online data collection and analysis. She was part of the founding team that brought the company from startup to acquisition.

What turned her toward academia was advice from a Wharton professor, who befriended Moe and served as her mentor. Moe taught at the University of Texas at Austin for four years before joining Maryland Smith’s faculty in 2004.

Among other research interests, she develops models for online and social media marketing and studies issues related to digital marketing and data analytics. 

Her 2014 book, “Social Media Intelligence,” co-authored with David A. Schweidel at Emory University in Atlanta, provides tools to filter out the noise in online forums full of fake accounts, trolls and outliers — leaving marketers with valid, reliable results in real-time.

Moe launched the Master of Science in Marketing Analytics program at Smith in 2013 and served as its academic director until her appointment as associate dean in December 2018. She succeeds professor Michael Faulkender, nominated in 2018 by President Donald Trump as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

Moe also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Marketing Science Institute, is the editor of the Journal of Interactive Marketing, and is on the editorial review boards for the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science.

She consults for numerous corporations and government agencies, helping them develop and implement state-of-the-art statistical models in the area of web analytics, social media intelligence and forecasting, and frequently serves as an expert witness in litigation.

Starting in spring 2019, Smith will also have two new academic department chairs. Russell Wermers, the Bank of America Professor of Finance and director of the school’s Center for Financial Policy, will lead the Finance Department. And Martin Dresner will lead the Logistics, Business & Public Policy Department.