2025 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Anthony Salerno, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University

Anthony Salerno
Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University

“I was not the best student in the class or highly conformable with the subject matter. However, Professor Salerno made me feel confident. Professor Salerno created meaningful connections with the students and always offered some humor throughout the class. I can confidently say, speaking on behalf of my 60-plus classmates, that there is nobody more deserving of this award!” – Barrett Guttell

Anthony Salerno, 38, is an associate professor of marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. Currently, he serves as the director of the Owen Insights Behavioral Lab and an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing Research. He is also the incoming treasurer on the board of directors for the Association for Consumer Research and co-chair for the 2026 Society for Consumer Psychology Conference. 

Anthony’s research expertise revolves around understanding how our emotions and goals shape consumer behavior. He has published in the top marketing and psychology journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Psychological Science. Anthony has also discussed his research on NPR and been covered by other media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, HuffPost, The Miami Herald, as well as Men’s Health and Women’s Health magazines.

Anthony currently teaches students in Owen’s Executive MBA, MBA, and Master’s in Marketing programs, with his courses including Marketing Strategy, Quantitative Analysis for Marketing Decision Making, and a Marketing Directed Study. Previously, he taught Advertising and Marketing Communications to MBA students at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. 

Anthony has received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Young Scholar Award from the Marketing Science Institute, and been a recipient of the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

BACKGROUND

At current institution since what year? 2021

Education: Ph.D. Marketing, University of Miami (2014); B.S. Communications, Departmental Honors in Psychology, University of Miami (2009)

List of MBA courses you currently teach: Marketing Strategy (executive MBA program), Quantitative Analysis for Marketing Decision Making (daytime MBA program) 

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when… I wouldn’t say there was a singular moment but rather a realization that strengthened over time. I love that as business school professors, we have the opportunity to take charge of our careers and decide what to work on (and with whom) at any given point in time. We have opportunities to continually learn and grow as a vocation, studying interesting things and then sharing it with others. We also get to wear many different hats so there is a lot of variety in our work across our days, weeks, and seasons. There is a lot to love about this job, and I feel very grateful.

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? My research broadly looks at how our emotions and goals shape consumer behavior, usually with a focus on actions that have implications for consumer well-being (e.g., health, food consumption, social connection, personal finance, etc.). 

For instance, one recent research project, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research, looks at what “cringe” is as an emotion and why consumers want to share cringeworthy content with others. My coauthors—Brianna Escoe and Nate Martin—and I show cringe to be a type of secondhand embarrassment you feel for someone trying to form a positive impression on others in a way that is awkward and inexcusable from the observer’s perspective. 

Interestingly, we find that consumers can cringe in response to the transgressions of brands just like they do with people. This occurs because firms attempt to form positive impressions on consumers through persuasive advertisements, brand-influencer partnerships, or brand leadership behavior (e.g., CEO Elon Musk). We find that consumers share cringeworthy content because it affords an opportunity for self-enhancement. By sharing a cringeworthy offense, consumers can connect with others and subtly show how they have a superior understanding of appropriate social norms (e.g., “Look what they did, I would never do that!”). For brand managers, the implication of our research is that it is important not to elicit cringe from consumers or you risk having them talk about your brand for all the wrong reasons. 

If I weren’t a business school professor… Oh man, I find so many things interesting that there’s not one specific job that comes to mind. Case in point, earlier on in my life I wanted to be a stand-up comedian and a clinical psychologist (not at the same time, that would be pretty weird). More recently, I have enjoyed learning how to fix things and DIY stuff and could imagine being an apprentice in one of the trades. I could also envision being a financial advisor because of my love for the details, research, and continuous learning. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I can see myself doing.

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I think I stand out as a professor in the sense that I genuinely care about each of my students in ensuring that they grow in some way through the interactions they have with me in my classes. If you were to ask a student in one of my classes, I think that’s probably the main thing they would say. Tony really cares.

One word that describes my first time teaching: Guarded.

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: Business is a reflection of life and society, which is always changing. So, the way students engage with the material we teach is always going to shift. This makes teaching an exciting challenge in terms of thinking through how to present concepts in class in a way that resonates and is relevant. 

Professor I most admire and why: There are so many professors I admire so I am instead going to mention those who I also have been fortunate enough to have learned from. I would start with Professor Jutta Joormann, who was really the first professor I encountered that set me on this trajectory as a professor. She invested in me as an undergraduate student and supervised my senior honors thesis, which got my feet wet with conducting research. My dissertation advisors Juliano Laran and Chris Janiszewski taught me the importance of critical thinking, creativity, and hard work for doing research well and have both been incredible mentors over the years. I also have deep admiration and gratitude for my professors while doing my Ph.D. at the University of Miami, as well as my past and present colleagues at Cincinnati and Vanderbilt respectively. 

TEACHING MBA STUDENTS

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? At Owen, we are primarily a graduate school, so I get to teach our daytime MBA students, in addition to our executive MBA students, and our master’s students. What I enjoy most about teaching graduate students is that there is nobody who does not want to be there; everyone has made a very deliberate decision to enroll into their program. That makes coming to class a real joy because everyone is engaged, invested, and highly motivated to get as much out of the program as they can. 

What is most challenging? Most students want to see a direct application of what we are learning to their current work and/or what they see themselves doing post-graduation. And while all our students plan to go into business, there are so many different facets of business in the types of industries, companies, and roles that students go into. So, it can be challenging within a given course to have enough variety of examples so that one connects with every single student in the room. However, one of the ways I try to achieve this is on the first day of a new course, I will have each student fill out an information sheet about themselves, including their past and present work experiences. Doing this helps me think ahead about what kind of examples I might use for certain class concepts or for bringing in certain current events that tie what people are interested in doing with what we are talking about that day. 

In one word, describe your favorite type of student: Curious.

In one word, describe your least favorite type of student: Self-absorbed.

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… Someone who is fair and clearly communicates the class deliverables and expectations.

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

What are your hobbies? I have a bunch of different hobbies. Reading is a big one. I enjoy exercising too, usually weights, boxing, or jump roping. I like spending time with my family, doing things like hiking, traveling, and/or seeing games, shows, and concerts. I also got into bonsai recently, which is kind of ironically hilarious because it’s a hobby that’s slow moving, technical, and detail oriented—just like the research process with my job. For me though, it is as much about the social connections as it is doing the hobby itself. Nashville has a bonsai club that just turned 50 years old earlier this year and the people in it are just awesome.

How will you spend your summer? I will spend my summer here for the most part, but we are planning a couple of weekend trips to nearby cities at some point in the summer.

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Whenever I vacation, I try to go to new locations, so this is a tough one to answer. I guess wherever I’m going next!

Favorite book(s): Whenever I read, it tends to be nonfiction, and something related to learning and/or personal growth. A few books that have really impacted me recently include Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Deep Work and Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? My wife loves movies and television so I inevitably get exposed to a bunch of different stuff, but my favorites are the ones that make me laugh. My favorite comedy movies are Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Dumb and Dumber. For comedy shows, you can’t go wrong with Frasier, Seinfeld, and the first three seasons of Arrested Development. 

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? With music, if you asked me a few years ago, I would have said I’m basically into every kind of music except country. Hated country. Now, having been here in Nashville for four years now, my wife and I are laughing at each other about how we’re both slowly becoming country fans as well. With artists in the traditional sense, I am always fascinated by paintings, with a particular affinity for abstract paintings that use acrylic paint. Whenever I visit a new location with an art museum, I will typically try to visit and then beeline it for the painting section.

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… Exemplifying lifelong learning by regularly facilitating continuing education opportunities of all shapes and sizes for their past and present students, faculty and staff, and the broader community the school resides in. 

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… Exercising humility and empathy in the way that people interact with each other. I would also extrapolate this to our society as a whole. 

I’m grateful for… My family and friends. Our home and all the wonderful people we have connected with in our community. My work and the unbelievably smart, talented, and kind people I get to call my colleagues. My health and wellbeing. I’ll often reflect on this question when I walk my dog in the morning and feel grateful for this wonderful life that I have. 

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