Tony Sardella

Our March 2011 Presenter

Anthony Sardella is managing director of evolve24 and is senior vice president of Maritz Research. He is also adjunct professor of business at the Olin School of Business at Washington University, St. Louis, and sits on the board of Olin’s Institute for Innovation and Growth. Sardella is a recognized leader in the field of managing businesses to overcome reputation management challenges and founded evolve24 in 2004.

He is a frequent speaker and consultant to corporations facing reputation issues and wanting to develop a marketing program, reputation management strategy, or strategic communications plan within a high concern, low trust environment.

Sardella's teaching and research focus on the integration of business strategy with societal environments for the purpose of gaining competitive advantage in the marketplace and improving shareholder value.  His lectures focus on reputation and crisis management, negative branding attacks, activism, consumer boycotts, political actions strategy and regulatory issues management.  His work has been featured at conferences such as the Reputation Institute and in publications including the Economist.

Sardella spent 12 years with Monsanto Company in St. Louis, holding various senior roles including director of biotechnology marketing services.  In this strategy role, he directed the repositioning of Monsanto’s emerging biotechnology branded products by leading outreach strategies directed at influential stakeholder communities including technical, scientific and academic communities. Moreover, he oversaw the creation and development of expert reputation management systems, and novel science based methods for managing issues, reputation and crisis.

Sardella has held senior business, scientific, marketing and public affairs positions throughout his career at Pharmacia Corporation, following the merger of Monsanto and Pharmacia UpJohn, and CanTox Inc., a leading scientific consulting strategy firm. He has served on various organizations such as the Biotechnology Industry Association, the American Chemical Specialty Manufacturers Association, CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council as well as being a member of Institutes such as the Marketing Science Institute, the Knowledge Management Institute and the Pharmaceutical Education Research Institute and the Society for Risk Analysis.

Sardella has contributed in the development of various business case studies at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, focusing on the successful commercialization and branding strategies for novel technologies and their relationship to marketing and advertising strategy, organizational structure and business development strategies. In addition, he has authored and co-authored more than 25 papers in the field of human health risk assessment prepared on behalf of government, and non-governmental scientific bodies.

He holds a master’s in business administration from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and a bachelor’s of science in Biomedical Sciences with a specialist’s in toxicology from the University of Toronto.

His career of breakthrough work was honored in 1998 when he was inducted as a Laureate of the Smithsonian Institute’s Permanent Research Collection in the Museum of Art and History for his “visionary work leading to significant social, economic and educational impact in the field of science.” He also became a member of the Smithsonian’s prestigious Innovator’s Network.