Neeli Bendapudi is the 18th President of the University of Louisville. Selected by the UofL Board of Trustees in April 2018, Bendapudi came to Louisville from the University of Kansas where she served as Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor.

Since becoming President, Bendapudi has worked toward making the university a great place for students to learn, a great place for faculty and staff to work, and a great place for alumni and the community to invest. Under her leadership, the university will celebrate diversity, foster equity and strive for inclusion.

She earned her PhD in marketing from the University of Kansas and has teaching experience at Texas A&M University and The Ohio State University. Bendapudi returned to KU in 2011 to become the School of Business dean and H.D. Price Professor of Business. During her career, she has taught at the undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA and PhD levels and received numerous college, university and national teaching awards.

Bendapudi specializes in the study of consumer behavior in service contexts. Her research deals with customers’ willingness and ability to maintain long-term relationships with firms and with the brands and employees that represent them. Her research has been published in the Journal of Academic Medicine, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing (where she also served on the editorial board), Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research and in the proceedings of various national and international conferences. Her work has been featured by popular media outlets including The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, WebMD and Fox News Network.

Previously, she served as chief customer officer of the Huntington National Bank and was actively involved in business outreach through consulting and executive education programs.

A highly sought-after keynote speaker, she has addressed national and international audiences for many companies, trade groups and organizations.

Bendapudi sits on the Board of Directors of publicly held company Lancaster Colony Corporation and has sat on several non-profit organization boards, including MRIGlobal, an independent research institute. She is a former Leadership Foundation Fellow of the International Women’s Forum, one of a select group of women selected worldwide for this prestigious honor.

She is married to Venkat Bendapudi. Their daughter, Sirisha, is married to Kyle Ladd.