Rod Drury, founder and CEO of cloud accounting software company Xero, has been named the Global Marketer of the Year at an international marketing research conference held at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand last week.

The Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) 2017 Global Marketer of the Year Award was presented to Drury at the 2017 AMS World Marketing Congress, hosted by the University of Canterbury (UC) Business School | Te Kura Umanga. Running from June 27 to July 1, this is the first time UC has hosted the international event.

The Academy of Marketing Science Co-director of International Programs, Professor Barry J. Babin, says that Drury epitomises the Global Marketer of the Year Award.

“The entrepreneurial spirit and drive he shows and his willingness to explore the cutting edges of marketing truly capture the spirit of the AMS mission. We welcome Rod to the AMS family.”

New Zealand technology entrepreneur Drury heads up Xero, a leading international cloud accounting solution for small business.

“We’re thrilled to be grouped alongside previous global winners of this award like Coca-Cola, and to have Xero recognised for the marketing discipline our team has developed over the past 10 years,” he says.

“As you look at the next 10 years, marketing science gets even more interesting as the disciplines of marketing and data sciences interact to create entirely new approaches to build global brands.”

UC marketing experts presenting at the conference include Dr Ann-Marie Kennedy, Associate Professor Joerg Finsterwalder, Associate Professor Girish Prayag, Dr Chris Chen, and Professor C. Michael Hall and Marketing PhD student Joya Kemper.

This year the AMS conference theme was: Marketing Transformation – Marketing Practice in an Ever Changing World, and attracted over 220 competitive paper submissions. More than 140 marketing specialists from all over the world have been presenting their work and facilitating sessions across a wide range topics from digital advertising and international company issues, to exploring sensory effects on consumer behaviour.

The Academy of Marketing Science is a non-profit, international, scholarly, professional organisation. It is dedicated to promoting high standards and excellence in the creation and dissemination of marketing knowledge. The members represent some of the major thought leaders within the discipline of marketing around the world. The Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) is a leading global association of basic marketing researchers with members representing universities from across the globe (www.ams-web.org). AMS was founded in 1971 and is the publisher of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, an FT-50 journal.