Crediting the education she received from the University of Miami Herbert Business School (MBS) for powering her successful career, alumna Nancy Harris Bailey, B.B.A. ’66, is demonstrating her gratitude with a significant commitment to Miami Herbert, which includes a cash pledge and a planned gift.
The gift—a testament to her belief in the power of philanthropy to effect positive change in young lives and further inspired by her experience guest-lecturing for Dr. Joseph Johnson’s branding and new product development classes—will establish the Nancy H. Bailey Endowed Chair in Marketing and the Nancy H. Bailey Endowed Scholarship in Marketing.
“I am grateful for the role the University of Miami played in my personal success and I have seen first-hand in Dr. Johnson’s classes how MBS continues to prepare students for success after college,” Nancy said. “Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit with Dean John Quelch. In sharing his goal of achieving a top 25 ranking by 2025, he stressed the importance of a strong endowment in elevating the school’s academic programs. My desire to help the school reach that objective and to support the student experience prompted my gift.”
Breaking a barrier and launching a career
Nancy studied Business Management and Marketing at Miami Herbert and joined The Procter & Gamble Company after graduating in 1966. The circumstances surrounding that first postgraduate job were anything but ordinary—and they arose right here at UM.
“My career started with a simple letter published in the UM Placement Office by the Procter & Gamble Company. They were looking to interview men only in engineering and marketing. As the only woman in my marketing classes, I decided to apply. Ultimately, P & G offered me a job as the second woman in management. P&G played an integral part in my career success and it all started because of the connection made at UM.”
Since then, Nancy has held marketing management positions at several prominent New York-based advertising agencies, as well as the Burger King Corporation. She also established and subsequently sold two brand licensing companies. In the process, she was a pioneer in trademark licensing and the first to identify the concept of brand extension licensing.
Along the way, Nancy received numerous industry accolades, including being the first inductee for trademark licensing in the Licensing Industry Hall of Fame. Nancy was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2010 and she received a unique Career Achievement Award in 2014 from The Procter & Gamble Company’s Business Development Unit for introducing trademark licensing, which led to more than $1.5 billion in retail sales.
An example for tomorrow’s trailblazers
“I have been very fortunate to have been on the cutting edge of marketing trends during my career—whether promotional giveaways in the 60s, kids’ marketing programs at Burger King in the 70s, or the birth of the licensing industry in the 80s. In the beginning, no one was interested in corporate brand licensing. Today, it is one of the largest segments of the licensing industry.”
Now semi-retired, Nancy looks back on a career in which she blazed new trails on dual fronts—as a woman in marketing and trademark licensing—and looks forward to seeing new generations of Miami Herbert graduates use the opportunities available to them at the University of Miami as springboards to comparable success.
To learn more about giving back to the Miami Herbert Business School, please visit mbs.miami.edu/give-back or contact Development Director Dillon Boggs at dboggs@mbs.miami.edu.
