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to R: Al Burns, Kip Knight
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February 16, 2005
LSU News
LSU alumnus Kip Knight, vice president of marketing
and category management for eBay International,
and his wife, Peggy Day, have recently made donations
and pledges to the LSU Union and the E. J. Ourso
College of Business. The combined donations and
pledges total $200,000. Both university entities
will each receive $100,000.
Shirley Plakidas, director of the LSU Union, said
the Union will utilize Knight's gift to enhance
overall development efforts and to establish the
Knight and Day Leadership Awards to recognize LSU
Union leaders. The monies pledged to the E. J. Ourso
College's marketing department will go to establishing
a fellowship to honor Knight's former marketing
professor, Al Burns, who currently serves as department
chair and professor of marketing.
"This gift represents a milestone in the history
of the Union in terms of guaranteeing student leadership
opportunities into the future," said Plakidas.
Burns said the fellowship will enable the E. J.
Ourso College to attract the brightest and most
capable applicants to its marketing Ph.D. program.
"It is very exciting to the LSU marketing
department faculty to have the capability to compete
with the top marketing Ph.D. programs in the United
States for the best students," Burns said.
Knight, who earned a bachelor's degree in general
business from the E. J. Ourso College in 1978, went
on to earn an M.B.A. at the University of Cincinnati
as a Burke Fellow. During his four-year undergraduate
term at LSU, Knight served as the chair of the Academia
Committee and as the president of the Union Program
Council and Governing Board. As a student volunteer
he spent considerable time gaining critical job
related and leadership experience and credits the
LSU Union for serving as a training ground for future
success.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again:
I think the LSU Student Union is the greatest leadership
opportunity any student at LSU can take advantage
of while they're in college," Knight said. "I
would not be where I am today without it."
He has worked for Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo
and Taco Bell, as well as his own consulting firm,
Knight Vision, before moving to eBay in 2002. At
P&G, Knight worked on marketing plans for a
variety of well-known brands such as Bounce Fabric
Softener, Ivory Soap, Spic and Span, and a number
of test brands. In 1990, seeking an opportunity
to work internationally, Knight left P&G for
PepsiCo, where he became business development director,
general manager for North Latin America, marketing
director for Europe and Africa and vice president
of marketing for KFC International.
In 2002, Knight joined the online market company,
eBay, as vice president of marketing for its U.S.
business. During his time at eBay, he has worked
with eBay International in a general management
role for Latin America, Asia, Canada and Australia.
The company boasts more than 125 million users and
is one of the top 15 retailers in the world. eBay
has sites in 32 different countries around the world.
On Friday, May 13, Knight will be the keynote speaker
for "Louisiana Looking Up," a day-long
campus forum hosted by the LSU M.B.A Alumni Association.
The event will be held at the Shaw Center for the
Arts in downtown Baton Rouge. For more information
about the forum, contact Wendy Osborn Luedtke, director
of alumni and external relations for the E. J. Ourso
College, at 225-578-8865 or wendy@lsu.edu.
LSU Press Release
Wendy Osborn
Luedtke
E. J. Ourso College of Business
225/578-8865
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