Key Note Speaker

Linda Gorchels 

Marketing and Business Model Strategist

Linda Gorchels is on the executive education faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s business school in Madison, Wisconsin USA. She has taught over 10,000 corporate executives from the United States and globally. As a program director at UW-Madison, she designs, staffs and manages 30+ professional development seminars in marketing each year. As a member of the international World Future Society, she provides insights into 21st Century trends that are important for companies to consider in their strategic planning efforts.

An award-winning author, Linda received the Excellence in Thought Leadership distinction in 2006 from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management for the 3rd edition of The Product Manager’s Handbook (2006). This work plus her other books (The Product Manager’s Field Guide and The Manager’s Guide to Distribution Channels) have been translated into multiple languages. She has written over 35 business articles for many trade magazines and academic journals including, the Journal of Product & Brand Management, Business Marketing, Marketing News, the Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, the Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, and Engineering Management Journal. The 4th edition of The Product Manager’s Handbook was published in August 2011, and Linda’s new book, Business Model Renewal, will be available in February 2012.

Gorchels has provided on-site instruction for organizations such as Trane Commercial Systems, GE Medical, Siemens, Metso Automation, Nokia (in Beijing), J.F. Pearson (in Shanghai), conducted workshops in Poland and Hungary, and lectured in an MBA forum at Fudan University in Shanghai. She was a keynote speaker or session leader for BAI’s School of Retail Banking, the Product Development and Management Association, CUES Leadership Institutes, the Professional Pricing Society, the World Future Society, and the Association of International Product Marketing and Management.

Prior to joining the university, Linda held numerous marketing positions with VEREX Assurance, Wm. C. Brown Publishers, and Lear-Siegler, Inc. She was on the faculty at UW-Eau Claire, earning the distinction of being in the top-20 list of excellent teachers. In her “other” life, Linda is a wife and mother of two daughters and an eclectic volunteer helping build Habitat for Humanity homes, devoting time on boards of directors, and participating in Rotary.