The Founder
Dr Anthony J. McMullan
Chairman The Centre for Marketing Leadership
A Practitioner—Scholar of Marketing as Change
Dr McMullan’s work bridges four domains rarely combined with equal depth:
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Practical marketing experience
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Marketing theory and the history of marketing thought
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Organisational leadership and strategy
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The reality of change within real-world systems across complex sectors
His thesis interrogates long-held assumptions in the field, arguing that marketing has been constrained by Newtonian “exchange” thinking and only partially liberated by Darwinian notions of adaptation. He proposes a third, more complete framework:
Marketing as a
Change-Oriented Practice
Where organisations and their leadership accept that markets do not sit still, customers do not sit still, and competitive advantage does not sit still. The organisations that succeed are those that understand how change works, how it accumulates, and how it can be guided, all within a more fundamental understanding of marketing practice. Such organisations understand marketing as change, being more than the pursuit of an exchange (sale), more than that instant the exchange/sale is achieved.
Dr McMullan asks—and answers—the fundamental question:
What is marketing ultimately for?
Not communication. Not branding. Not awareness.
Marketing exists to guide and shape the evolution of the organisation in response to the influence of change within the environments in which the organisation operates.
This is a view deeply grounded in tradition: that disciplines must be defined by their core purpose, not by their more fundamental tools.
Marketing as the
Discipline of Change
Modern organisations face unprecedented pressures: shifting markets, evolving customer expectations, technological disruption, and rising social scrutiny. Yet the function best equipped to navigate these forces—marketing—has often been reduced to communications, campaigns, and tactical outputs.
Dr McMullan restores marketing to its rightful place as:
an organisational leadership discipline defined as change, custodian for and concerned with understanding, anticipating, guiding, and governing change.
His thesis, The Concept of Change: A Determinant for Explaining the Substance of Marketing, provides a rigorous foundation for this view, demonstrating that marketing’s true substance, its core element, is not exchange but the purposeful leadership of marketing as change within the organisational.
Organisation talk to Dr McMullan to rethink:
the practice of marketing within their organisations; how marketing as change influences all aspects of the organisation, and how it shapes enduring success.
The Thesis behind the
Centre’s Philosophy
At the core of Dr Anthony J. McMullan’s work is a single proposition: the substance of marketing is not exchange, but change.
His thesis, “The Concept of Change: A Determinant for Explaining the Substance of Marketing,”
challenges traditional thinking by establishing that exchange is the outcome of marketing, not its origin. All exchanges are preceded by a change in belief, behaviour, or state.
From this perspective, marketing is not a functional activity, but a leadership discipline responsible for understanding and guiding change within organisations and their environments.
Founder’s Statement
Marketing has always been described as a pervasive societal activity, one of the most powerful forces shaping organisational behaviour and societal outcomes.
Yet for much of my professional life, I observed a contradiction: marketing was everywhere, but rarely leading.
Across government, public institutions, and private enterprise, I saw marketing practiced diligently—yet constrained. It was managed, measured, and executed, but seldom trusted to guide direction. The discipline that should have helped organisations understand change was itself resisting evolution.
This experience led me to a simple but fundamental question: If the core element of marketing is the concept of exchange, what is the reason for exchange in the first place?
The answer, revealed through scholarship and practice alike, is the concept of change. After all, the exchange is in fact a manifestation of change in practical terms.
People do not exchange for the sake of transacting. They exchange to move from an undesired state to a desired state.
The Centre for Marketing Leadership was established to give this insight a home—to provide a place where marketing is understood not as a set of tactics, but as a leadership responsibility.
This Centre exists to help organisations think differently about marketing, to reconnect marketing with its deeper purpose, act more deliberately in anticipating change, responding to change, and creating change while restoring confidence in marketing as a force for good.
It is founded on respect for the discipline’s history, confidence in its future, and a belief that marketing—when led properly—can help organisations and societies navigate change with clarity, purpose, and integrity.
Anthony J McMullan PhD
Chairman The Centre for Marketing Leadership