Michael Ahearne (born July 11, 1966) is a Chaired Professor of Marketing in the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. He is also the Executive Director of the Sales Excellence Institute and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. Ahearne's research has primarily focused on improving the performance of salespeople and sales organizations. He was recently recognized by the American Marketing Association as one of the 10 most research productive scholars in the field of marketing in the past five years (2009–2013). His research has impacted business practice significantly, which led the Sales Education Foundation to select him as the inaugural winner of the Sales Education Foundation's Research Dissemination Award. Ahearne also coauthors the highest grossing professional selling textbook in the world, Selling Today: Partnering to Create Customer Value, which is used to teach undergraduate introduction to sales courses in over 30 countries.