| In his career as professor, researcher and founding director of the Center for Services Leadership in Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business, Steve Brown has achieved international recognition for his work in services leadership, dealing with such issues as service quality, recovering from service failures and building services in product-dominated companies. The field of services, now acknowledged to be a key dimension of the economy, has enjoyed tremendous growth and recognition, thanks in part to Brown's contributions, and its leaders acknowledge him as one of its instrumental founders and among its current leaders. The Center for Services Leadership, created in 1986 behind Brown's vision and the support of Edward M. Carson, is now considered the premier location for research and education in services marketing and customer focus. Intangibles magazine calls it "the Mecca" for those interested in services. More than 40 leading companies are charter members of the Center, including Cisco, IBM and McKinsey & Company. A prolific researcher and author, Brown has co-authored and edited 20 books, and over 150 articles. He is co-founder and co-chair of the International Quality in Services conferences held every other year in Sweden or North America, a past international president of the American Marketing Association and a Winspear Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria in Canada. He serves on the boards of neoIT, The HSM Group and Vestor Partners. Brown has earned numerous national and university-wide awards for distinguished contributions to his discipline and to the community such as the American Marketing Association’s prestigious Career Contributions to Services Marketing and an honorary doctorate from the Swedish School of Economics. His students consistently rate Professor Brown as one of their most inspiring professors, and he is sought after as a speaker for conferences around the world. | 
