Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw began his career researching in applied maths, with a PhD at Cambridge University. After several commercial jobs, during which he obtained a MSc in Operational Research, he was headhunted to Andersen Consulting (today known as Accenture) to set up their Marketing Consultancy practice. In some high profile projects for BT, Barclays and British Airways, he built some of the world's first customer databases, coined the phrase "database marketing" and wrote the seminal book of that name (1987).

Leaving Andersen, he set up his own consulting firm and continued to work on the emerging field of CRM, and wrote several books on the subject. In 1995 he was hired by Lou Gerstner and Sam Palmisano at IBM to devise a strategy for their emerging services business. He was subsequently retained for another year to refine and research the strategy and was instrumental in defining the vision for IBM's new business direction. Cranfield School of Management made him an honorary professor in 1995.

Going back to his mathematical roots, the FT hired him to research and write a report on Marketing Accountability (1997). Working with a small team of mathematicians and economists his consultancy defined many of the modern methods of measuring marketing effectiveness, and the Economist commissioned a book from him entitled Improving Marketing Effectiveness (1999) that was voted top marketing book of the year. In 1998 he set up the think tank The Value Based Marketing Forum, with 50 member organisations, exploring best practices in marketing accountability. He worked for a diverse range of clients in FMCG, Financial Services, Retail and other sectors, typically on 4-6 projects annually on aspects of marketing effectiveness, efficiency and measurement. He is currently an honorary Professor of Marketing Metrics at Cass Business School and an adviser to several professional institutes, including CIM, CIMA, IPA, ISBA and ICAEW.