Dr. Kathleen Adams
Details
-
Department: Economics Finance & Marketing
-
Campus: City Campus Australia
-
kathleen.adams@rmit.edu.au
-
ORCID:
0000-0003-0759-3497
About
Kathleen Adams has been a lecturer in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University, Melbourne, since 2000. Before joining RMIT, Kathleen was at Monash University in the School of Marketing for two years. Prior to moving to Academia, Kathleen held various senior corporate roles in marketing, logistics and training at Jacqui E (a member of the Just Group of Companies), Daimaru Melbourne and Myer before becoming an academic. Her corporate experience spans more than 17 years.
Since the commencement of 2025, Kathleen is an Education Focused academic in the Department of Marketing at RMIT University. She commenced at RMIT in March, 2000 after spending 2 years at Monash University also as a marketing academic. Kathleen has been a visiting lecturer in Lille, France, SKEMA in Suzhou, Hong Kong Management Association, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics. She usually teaches at the Singapore Institute of Management twice per year.
She has a long history of utilising industry for student projects for both Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses, These include Sahara Yoghurt, Picnic Foods, Sparkling Beverages, Wine in a Glass, Marisa's Kitchen and Visiti Victoria. In 2025, she was one of a team of marketing academics who were awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Programs and Services that Enhance Learning along with 7 other colleagues. This adds to her total of 13 other awards ranging from a University award for the Business Faculty's WIL team, numerous Good Teaching Awards and awards for the Best Paper in the Education track at ANZMAC and the Best Reviewer at ANZMAC.
She also coordinated the L'Oreal Brandstorm Marketing competition for RMIT students from 2012-2016. She was lucky enough to accompany the winning Australian team to Paris to compete in the International Finals in 2012, 2013 and 2014. She returned to coordinating the Brandstorm competition again in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. One of the 2022 groups was selected for the ANZ Semi-finals, and one of the groups in 2023 was selected for the ANZ National Final. She was awarded a CoBL Teaching award for the Local, National and Global award for her continuing work with the L'Oreal Brandstorm competition in 2024.
Research fields
- 3506 Marketing
- 390303 Higher education
Academic positions
- Lecturer
- RMIT University
- Marketing
- Melbourne, Australia
- 1 Mar 2000 – Present
- Lecturer
- Monash University
- Marketing
- Melbourne, Australia
- 16 Feb 1998 – 28 Feb 2000
Teaching interests
Kathleen currently teaches and coordinates both Undergraduate Services Marketing in Melbourne and Singapore and Postgraduate International Marketing. She also coordinates Marketing Principles online.
For many years she was the Work Integrated Learning and Internships coordinator for the school of Economics, Finance and Marketing.
She has previously taught a slew of other courses including: Business to Business Marketing; Marketing Principles; Cross-Cultural Marketing; Retailing; Buyer Behaviour; International Trade Operations; Marketing Channels; International Business Strategy; Direct Marketing; Advanced Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Planning; Not-for-profit Marketing; Marketing Research; Organisational Behaviour and Organisation and Management. In addition she has supervised numerous Masters by Coursework and Honours students.
Research interests
Kathleen’s research interests include cross-cultural mentoring, educational mentoring, social media marketing, international marketing, experiential education, student competitions and the influence of online channels on shopping rituals.
