Mark Allen, PhD

Biography

Mark Allen is an award-winning educator, speaker, consultant, and author who specializes in talent management, corporate universities, and human resources. He is the author of Aha Moments in Talent Management, The Next Generation of Corporate Universities, and The Corporate University Handbook. In 2017, he was honored with the Global Training and Development Leadership Award by the World Human Resource Development Congress in Mumbai, India. He was recently named one of the Top 100 Human Resources Influencers by Engagedly.

Mark is a faculty member at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, where he also serves as Academic Director of the Master of Science in Human Resources program and where he previously served as Director of Executive Education. He was awarded Pepperdine University’s Howard A. White Award for Teaching Excellence in 2021 and the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School Teaching Award in 2020. Mark is a senior faculty member of the Human Capital Institute, a senior associate with the Kiely Group, and has taught for Vatel University and the American Management Association.

As an internationally-recognized authority, he is a popular speaker and has presented his research in numerous countries including China, France, Italy, Mexico, Barbados, Turkey, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, India, and throughout the United States and Canada. In addition to his expertise in talent management and learning & development, his other areas of expertise include strategic workforce planning, the assessment of training and development programs, the evaluation of teaching and learning in postsecondary, adult, and corporate education, and creativity and innovation. Mark consults with both new and mature corporate universities and has served on the Board of Regents of the University of Farmers at Farmers Insurance and the Board of Advisors of the Global Council of Corporate Universities.

Mark has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University, an MBA from Pepperdine University, and a Ph.D. in Education from USC. An award-winning teacher, Mark teaches courses in Leadership, Management, Human Resources, Creativity, and Adult Learning at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management and Graduate School of Education and Psychology and has taught business and management courses at a number of institutions.

He has consulted with or delivered executive development programs for 3M, Alpha Natural Resources, AT&T, Boeing, Caesars, Farmers Insurance, Kaiser Permanente, the Los Angeles Police Department, Samsung, Northwestern Mutual, Southern California Edison, the government of Taiwan, Verizon, and many other global organizations. He has done Strategic Workforce Planning engagements with Baxter International, Orange County Transportation Authority, and AltaMed Health Services.

Previously, Mark was Program Director in Executive Education at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business where he developed a variety of highly successful executive education programs. He has also held managerial positions at Kaplan, Integrated Data Concepts, and SRS Publishing.

Mark lives in Redondo Beach, California with his two sons who are both Pepperdine alumni. Mark is ranked among the top 5,000 tournament poker players in the world and the top 2,500 in the US.  He may be reached at mallen@pepperdine.edu.

Education

• PhD, Higher Education Administration and Policy, University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education

• Master of Business Administration, Pepperdine University, Graziadio Business School

• Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Columbia University