MASMI Faculty Team

Founding Director of the Mid-Atlantic Sales and Marketing Institute (MASMI), and chair of the Marketing department at the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University. He is also a sales trainer who has taught sales for over a decade and coached many students for national sales competitions. Prior to joining academia, he has worked in sales and marketing with the Tata group in India and was a commodities trader in West Africa.

He is the author of many published research papers and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. His research interests are Sales Management, Marketing and Public Policy, E-commerce and Retail Trade promotions.

Dr Amit Poddar received his Bachelors in Business Studies from the University of Delhi, India; a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management in Anand, India; and Ph.D in Marketing from Georgia State University.

Assistant Professor of Marketing and Current Sales Team Coach for Mid-Atlantic Sales and Marketing Institute (MASMI).  She has coached the MASMI sales team to compete in the International Collegiate Sales Competition (ICSC) 2016 in Orlando, FL and the Western States Collegiate Sales Competition (WSCSC) 2017 where the team won the Rookie Team award and ranked second to Arizona State University for overall champion.

Prior to her position at SU, she gained extensive sales and management experience with such companies as NBC, Food Lion, and Actmedia.  Previous teaching experience includes nine years at Radford University in Radford, VA.

Her research interests include sales call communication tools, buyer’s evaluation of sellers, and social media/technology impacts on the sales profession.

Dr. Billups completed her Bachelors in Management from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, her Masters in Business Administration from Bethel University in MacKenzie, TN, and her Doctorate of Business Administration from Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA.

Aaron Johnson joined the Marketing faculty in the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University in the Fall of 2017, after completing his PhD in Marketing from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Aaron has nearly a decade of industry experience in B2C and B2B sales, marketing, and relationship management working for small local business to large national firms, like Wells Fargo Bank. He was also a marketing research consultant for North American Lighting (of the international Koito Group) in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

His research interests surround consumer perceptions of marketplace signals, particularly online consumer ratings and product warranties. Overall, his passion for teaching and providing students with experiential learning opportunities, coupled with a desire to build long-term relationships with regional business leaders, makes Aaron a valuable addition to MASMI.

Adjunct Professor in the Management & Marketing Department – Perdue School of Business, Salisbury University. Doug is also a business consultant (outsourcing) and middle school girls lacrosse coach.

As a lecturer, he stresses the requirement for his students to build a strong personal “brand” and learn how to establish and maintain solid business relationships.

Doug spent 35+ years in selling and sales management focusing on the Information Technology Sector, working for such companies IBM, AT&T, Siemens, Gartner, and Northrop Grumman. He attempts to bring a “real world” perspective to his instruction and is dedicated to preparing his students to compete when they enter the work force.

He received his BA and MA from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Loyola.

Dr. Argha Sen joins us as an Assistant Professor of Marketing in Salisbury University’s Franklin P. Perdue School of Business. Argha received his PhD in Marketing from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His primary research interests lie in B2B marketing, inter-organizational relationships and digital marketing. His dissertation, focused on exploring governance strategies of platforms in B2B electronic markets won him the prestigious 2017 Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) Doctoral Competition award, and he was named an ISBM Doctoral Fellow. He has presented multiple papers in numerous academic conferences. Prior to joining academia, Argha had a rich industry experience spanning twelve years in India where he managed sales teams at a national level, handled key accounts of global MNCs, and trained channel partners on sales and behavioral concepts.