Meet Neeli Bendapudi, Penn State's Next President

Bendapudi will join Penn State after spending three years as president at the University of Louisville.

Neeli Bendapudi, the University of Louisville president who has significant business, marketing and research experience, will be Penn State's next president. Penn State's Board of Trustees unanimously approved Benadpudi's appointment Thursday after a nine-month search.

Bendapudi will replace President Eric Barron, who is retiring in June 2022. Her term is scheduled to begin during Penn State's spring semester. Bendapudi will become Penn State's 19th president and the first female and person of color to serve as president.

Penn State's board approved a five-year contract worth $1.3 million annually, which includes a $950,000 base salary and $350,000 in supplemental retirement contributions.

"I am in awe of Penn State's 'We Are' spirit," Bendapudi said in her opening remarks to the board.

Bendapudi has served as Louisville's president for three years and received a new five-year contract in July after a positive review from the Louisville Board of Trustees.

The board praised Bendapudi for stabilizing Louisville's financial position, improving its credit outlook, overseeing a record $170 million in research funding and attaining the "highest UofL enrollment in decades" for the 2020 fall semester.

Louisville's board recommended a raise and a $200,000 annual retention bonus as part of Bendapudi's new contract.

"When she became president in 2018, Neeli accepted a smaller salary than her predecessors and many of her peers, saying she felt she needed to earn the compensation," Mary Nixon, chair of Louisville's board, said in a July news release. "... While she did not approach us about a raise, she has clearly earned it."

Louisville President Neeli Bendapudi attended a November ceremony to retire the jersey number of former Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson. (Alton Strupp/Louisville Courier Journal)

According to her Louisville biography, Bendapudi specializes in "the study of consumer behavior in service contexts." She has conducted research regarding consumer behavior patterns and brand loyalty and has been published in various academic journals and news sites.

Bendapudi has been a professor of marketing at Texas A&M and Ohio State, where she spent 16 years as a faculty member. In 2011 she was named dean of the University of Kansas School of Business, where she previously had earned a Ph.D., and served as the university's provost and executive vice chancellor from 2016-18.

At Ohio State, Bendapudi was the founding director of the Fisher College of Business' Institute for Managing Services research consortium. She also helped to launch the Nationwide Center for Advanced Customer Insights and Analytics, a joint venture of Nationwide and Ohio State that conducts insurance research.

Bendapudi received her BA and MBA from Andhra University in India. She completed her Ph.D. at Kansas in 1994.

Other highlights from her CV at Louisville:

• Increased undergraduate enrollment 62 percent while dean at Kansas' School of Business.
• Was a member of the Kansas Athletics Board of Directors and served on its Compensation Committee.
• Was one of five women who were full professors in OSU's Fisher College of Business.
  
• Served as chief customer officer at Huntington National Bank from 2007-08.
• Served on a number of corporate boards, including Sheetz.