Joe Dobrow

Joe Dobrow is a marketing executive, author, and educator who has been on the forefront of retail marketing and the natural foods business for more than 30 years. He served as the head of marketing for Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Fresh Fields, and Balducci's, and is the founder of MBArk, which helps to connect business education and the food business through career networking programs for graduate students and food industry leaders.

Dobrow was also a top marketing executive at other progressive brands including Flexcar/Zipcar and Discovery Channel. During a richly varied executive career, he worked directly for some of the country's most iconic business and sports executives - including AOL Co-Founder Steve Case, Whole Foods Co-Founder John Mackey, Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr., Basketball Hall of Famer Dave Cowens, and legendary cause marketer Carol Cone. He has spent the last several years teaching sustainability and management at the University of Colorado Boulder and the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

His first book, Natural Prophets, an entrepreneurial history of the natural foods industry, was published by Rodale Books in 2014. His second book, Pioneers of Promotion, was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2018 and focuses on the surprising roots of the marketing business in the 19th Century. He is currently working on a third book, Return of the Century, which examines attitudes toward technology and nostalgia around the turn of a century.