Lifetime Achievement Award For Business School Branding: Jan Slater of Gies College of Business

When Jan Slater announced in the spring of 2016 that she was stepping down as dean of the University of Illinois’ College of Media, she expected to ease back into teaching and consulting. But before her resignation letter was even dry, a call came that would alter the trajectory of her career—and the identity of one of America’s most innovative business schools.

The caller was Jeff Brown, the newly appointed dean of the College of Business, and he was inviting her out to lunch. Brown had an urgent pitch. He wanted to transform the college’s image—to make it mean something more than “just another college of business.” He needed someone who could define what the school stood for and communicate it powerfully to the world. Slater, a seasoned marketing strategist with deep university leadership experience, was the ideal choice.

Over sandwiches at Panera in Champaign, Brown was direct. “I have a great idea,” he told her. “I think you should come to us and be the first chief marketing officer at the College of Business. We need a brand and an image. People don’t understand who we are. I want you to come and do this.”

THE BRAND BUILDER WHO GAVE GIES ITS SOUL 

Eager for a new challenge yet realistic about what it would take, she made sure to exact some promises before accepting. “Okay,” she told Brown. “I’ll do this but here’s the deal. We have to be willing to invest in a brand. I want to do this the right way. It is going to take a lot of expense. It will take $1 million to build it and $2 million to launch it.”

The lunch and the commitments to invest became the start of what would become a creative partnership—and a friendship—that helped transform the business school’s image, culture, and sense of self. Under her leadership, Gies College of Business emerged as one of the most distinctive brands in business education, symbolizing access, innovation, and mission-driven education. “Business on Purpose” became both rallying cry and roadmap.

JAN SLATER: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN BUSINESS SCHOOL BRANDING

For Slater’s success in creating a standout business education brand, Poets&Quants is giving her our first Lifetime Achievement Award in Business School Branding. In the highly competitive world of business education, Slater has not only discovered a brand that resonates with the public; she has succeeded in restoring pride among students, faculty, staff and alumni in a name and an identity that is ubiquitous at the university and beyond.

“She has the X factor,” explains Larry Gies, the alum who made the historic $150 million naming gift to the school. “I have never seen someone with less ego than Jan. She is always behind the scenes but always pulling the strings. She is the unsung hero of the school.”

By the time of that luncheon meeting, Slater’s career already encompassed a rare blend of professional practice and academic leadership. Before joining Illinois, she taught at four universities, including nine years at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Earlier, she had worked as an advertising account executive and later founded her own marketing and communications firm.

“Jan is just a great mix of expertise, experience and mentoring,” says Brad Petersen, who succeeded Slater as chief marketing officer at Gies College of Business this past August when Slater retired. “In addition to building the Gies brand, she has been a mentor to many across the university. She genuinely has a connection with everyone, and she is always willing to give of herself.”

HER PHD DISSERTATION: COLLECTIBLES LIKE BARBIE AND COCA-COLA

At Illinois, she rose from a professor and department head of advertising in 2007 to dean of the College of Media, serving in that role from 2010 to 2016. Her scholarly interests centered on how consumers form emotional connections with brands; her doctoral dissertation from Syracuse University explored collectible icons such as Barbie and Coca-Cola. For years, she taught Introduction to Advertising as a strategy course emphasizing research and insight rather than slogans. Her approach reflected a consistent belief that a brand represents a lived promise: it communicates what an organization delivers and what it stands for every day.

When Slater joined the business school’s leadership team in mid-2016, she made clear that meaningful branding required both time and investment. She believed a business school brand should not be a superficial identity campaign but a disciplined process grounded in research and authenticity.

Her first semester was devoted to listening and learning. “We needed to understand how we were perceived,” says Slater. “I spent my first semester looking at everything we had presented in terms of marketing materials for the past four years. I had a big conference table and put everything we printed and sent out. It was all absolutely stunningly beautiful work. None of it screamed to me that it was College of Business at Illinois and nothing looked like it belonged together.”

MAPPING PERCEPTIONS OF RIVAL SCHOOLS INCLUDING INDIANA KELLEY AND MICHIGAN ROSS

She and her small staff—then only four people—began a systematic effort to reach out to the school’s stakeholders: faculty, staff, students, alumni, and even admitted students who had declined to enroll. Two research firms were engaged to collect and analyze the feedback, one for qualitative studies and another for quantitative analysis.

The findings confirmed that students deeply valued their professors and felt well supported, yet they lacked the outward pride often expressed by peers at benchmark institutions such as Michigan’s Ross School of Business or Indiana University’s Kelley School. Alumni viewed the school as innovative and collaborative, while prospective students described the community as welcoming and personal. During her first recruiting season for undergraduates, the college discovered that it had lost 73 students to Kelley and another 215 to the University of Illinois in Chicago.

“They were disappointed that they didn’t have as much pride as their peers from other schools like Ross or Kelley,” recalls Slater. “There was also a need for a sense of cohesive pride. Everybody liked being here. The students felt good. Alumni were okay. But there was not this centralized feeling of pride, loyalty and wanting to be involved and needing to be here.”

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