Debra Zahay-Blatz

Professor of Marketing, Writer, and Small Business Owner in Austin, TX

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Dr. Debra Zahay-Blatz is a Full Professor of Marketing and Director of the Master of Science in Digital Marketing and Analytics at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. She teaches in Digital Marketing and Analytics at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her course specialties include Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics and Predictive Modelling, Social Media Marketing and Marketing Strategy. She specializes in project courses where students can apply knowledge and create experiences and skills that can be applied in the job market. Her former students are working in search, social media, web design and usabiltiy and other areas of direct/digital marketing.

She holds her Doctorate in Marketing from the University of Illinois, her Master of Management from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, her Juris Doctor from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois and her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Zahay-Blatz researches how firms can facilitate customer relationships, particularly using customer information. Her recent focus has been organizing for Big Data and Customer Data Quality. Dr. Zahay-Blatz has authored numerous research articles and is the co-author, with Mary Lou Roberts of Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies. She is also a regular speaker on digital marketing and analytics topics and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

She has been the President of her own database and relationship management consulting firm, Zahay, Inc., since 1993 and has extensive experience helping companies identify and develop customer relationships. Her prior business experience includes senior marketing management responsibilities at MCI Telecommunications (now Verizon) and Dun & Bradstreet. She has also served as a Vice President on the Executive Board of the Chicago American Marketing Association and on the Executive Board of the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing and is active in the Digital Analytics Association.