Karen Eutsler

After earning her MBA from Xavier in 2006, Karen joined the XU marketing department as an Adjunct Professor teaching Professional Selling. She spent 15 years in corporate before changing careers in 2016 to be a full-time academic. Her professional experience was centered on sales, client service, marketing, and employee engagement. 

Karen’s courses are heavily influenced by her time in “the real world”.  Experiential learning, where students work with local companies on marketing projects, is a major focus in all of her classes. 

Sample Projects:

2019-2024 – Through partnerships with MLS team FC Cincinnati and MLB team Cincinnati Reds, Karen’s Professional Selling Practicum class to offers students hands-on experience selling game tickets B2B and B2C. Students create prospecting scripts, cold call, and launch digital/physical marketing campaigns to promote their product. Competing against a similar sales classes at the University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University, XU has outsold these schools on a ticket/student basis five times.

2021 – Principles of Marketing students learned first-hand from Xavier alumni and CEO Andy Gibson about the operations, go-to-market strategy, and mission of Tide Cleaners. Students then worked in teams to develop new marketing initiatives for the brand. Karen’s winning team was invited to work with the executive leadership of Tide Cleaners to launch their idea, a partnership between Loads of Hope and The Ronald McDonald House.

2018 – Students worked with Kroger’s Our Brands division to innovate new ice cream flavors for the Kroger/Private Selection brands. 80 student group submissions spanning 11 sections of Principles of Marketing were evaluated by Kroger and the top 5 finalists presented to a panel of Kroger executives. The winning flavor, Big Top Blast, created by 3 of Karen’s students, was renamed Unicorn Swirl and launched nationwide in 2019. Kroger sold over 1M tubs of Unicorn Swirl ice cream in its initial year and has since gone on to expand the product line.

In addition to teaching, Karen serves as the Executive Director for the Xavier Women in Business and Leadership, the Xavier Center for Teaching Excellence Board, and the Advisory Board for the Center for Innovation.  In 2024, she launched a vocational program, currently focused on Sales, in the Williams College of Business (WCB).

Outside of Xavier, Karen is a sideline supporter and sometimes coach for her children’s multiple sports, fosters yet-to-be-adopted dogs for Cincinnati Animal CARE, and is an avid reader.

Karen has been recognized as a Distinguished Faculty Member of the WCB, was a 2024 Teacher of the Year Nominee, the 2018-2019 WCB Professor of the Year, and recipient of the 2019 Student Athlete Faculty Appreciation Award.