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Marketing innovator John Sculley, a former chief executive officer of Apple and PepsiCo, will speak at ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, on Wednesday, February 26 at 6 p.m., at. The event is sponsored by the Marketing Club of ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ University’s Charles F. Dolan School of Business.

Open to the public, tickets are $30 and are available through the Quick Center Box Office: (203) 254-4010, or toll-free 1-877-ARTS-396. (1-877-278-7396). Tickets can also be purchased online at . Tickets are free to ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ University students, faculty, and staff. There is a limited amount of free tickets for alumni (one per person). Call the box office for details.

"I believe an entirely new middle class is taking shape and it will become the biggest definer for building billion dollar businesses," said Sculley, who will deliver a lecture entitled, "Globalization - The Future of American Brands." "But we are now talking about a very different middle class and a very different economy. For our new middle class, Amazon is replacing Wal-Mart as our aspirational model of a store with exceptional price-value combined with superb customer convenience."

Sculley has helmed two seminal American corporations, which have proven to be visionaries of building brand awareness, marketing products around the world, as well as advertising juggernauts. He led Pepsi to become the largest selling consumer packaged good in the United States with innovative marketing campaigns like the Pepsi Challenge. He was later recruited by Steve Jobs to be chief executive officer of Apple, and the company went on to become the largest seller of personal computers in the world. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox News.

Donald E. Gibson, Ph.D., dean of the Dolan School of Business, said Sculley’s talk will serve as a dynamic classroom not only benefiting students, but business professionals, entrepreneurs and the consumer. "This will be an up close opportunity to learn from a business leader who helped set the gold standard in how to market the world’s most popular products. There will be invaluable lessons on how to build exceptional customer experience services, how to measure customer driven business success, and how to build a consumer brand."

Sculley was the first big brand marketer to go to Silicon Valley when he joined Apple in 1983. Apple's 1984 Super Bowl campaign was inspired by Pepsi's groundbreaking work in experience marketing. After ten years as Apple CEO, Apple’s revenue had grown over 1000% and the Macintosh had grown to become the largest selling hardware personal computer in the world.

Since leaving Apple 20 years ago, Sculley, a New York City native, has invested in and mentored many serial entrepreneurs, helping them build successful, disruptive technology companies. Drawing upon more than 40 years experience as a corporate executive, investor, entrepreneur, mentor, and rainmaker, Sculley has also become a sought after keynote speaker worldwide, sharing his perspectives on topics such as beyond globalization and reinvention of work, and solving healthcare through innovation.  A Brown University graduate, he earned an MBA from The Wharton School.