John A. Quelch, MBA, MS, DBA

Biography

Professor Quelch is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on how deep understanding of consumer behavior is essential to shaping decisions by managers and policy makers in the healthcare sector. 

'He is the author of the seminal 1980 article, “Marketing Principles and the Future of Preventive Healthcare” in the Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, as well as early articles on the application of  marketing to nutrition promotion in Nutrition Reviews and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He first testified on these issues before Congress at the age of 26. Among his many books are Problems and Cases in Health Care Marketing (McGraw Hill, 2005) and Consumers, Corporations and Public Health (Oxford University Press, 2016). His most recent book, Building A Culture of Health: A New Imperative for Business (Springer, New York 2016),builds on an important conference, “Building A Culture of Health”, which took place at Harvard Business School in the Spring of 2016.  

Dr. Quelch developed and teaches the new course, “Consumers, Corporations and Public Health:, which is offered jointly to Harvard MBS students and MPH and DrPH students at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Quelch also teaches on many executive education programs at both the Chan School and Harvard Business School. 

Professor Quelch is currently a board member of Alere, a health diagnostics company and Aramark, a leading food service and facilities management company. He served previously as a non-executive director of Gentiva Health Services. 

Dr. Quelch holds Master’s degrees from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his BA at Oxford University and completed his doctorate in business administration at Harvard Business School.