Tom and Linda Buday gift will enhance study of purposeful brands at Smeal

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the former head of global marketing and consumer communication at Nestlé, Penn State Smeal College of Business graduate Tom Buday has always had an eye to the future.

“Nearly 20 years ago, Nestlé introduced the concept of ‘creating shared value’ into its corporate culture,” Buday said. “The notion behind creating shared value is that, as a for-profit company, we needed to deliver on shareholder expectations. But it was equally important that we deliver to society at large and that we do those things simultaneously. I am deeply committed to these ideals.”

Now, with a $500,000 gift to endow the Tom and Linda Buday Purposeful Brands Excellence Fund at Penn State Smeal, Buday and his wife, Linda, are bolstering Smeal’s efforts to attract, retain and prepare marketing leaders to look after what he calls “purposeful brands” in the future.

To have direct impact while their endowment builds value, the Budays have designated $10,000 a year for the next two years for immediate spending.

According to Buday, purposeful brands look across their value chain to determine how best to enhance the lives of customers and other key stakeholders and positively impact society and the environment in ways that are central to their business operations.

“In so doing they can differentiate themselves and build stronger customer relationships, while also benefiting their bottom line,” Buday said.

Meg Meloy, David H. McKinley Professor of Business Administration and chair of the Department of Marketing, called the Budays’ gift transformative.

“It is vital to our collective future that we systematically bring bold ideas to our students and train future generations of inspired leaders, like Tom. I am immensely grateful to him and Linda for their generosity and vision,” she said. “Today’s students will be faced with many decisions in their future careers. The Budays’ gift will help them understand the power and positive impacts of purposeful brands for people, planet and firm profitability.”

Buday said that purposeful brands, like Nestlé, do what they do because it’s right and necessary for their business. Citing Nestlé’s Nespresso, Buday explained how working to eliminate child labor from coffee farming and help to ensure livable wages for coffee-farming families were critical to Nespresso’s ability to source high-quality coffee.

“Part of my job was to take this concept of ‘creating shared value’ and determine how to apply it to Nestlé’s various product brands. It’s work I am excited to continue in partnership with Smeal,” he said.

Buday graduated from Penn State with a degree in marketing in 1980 and earned an MBA from the University of Cincinnati in 1981.

He started his career with Procter & Gamble in 1981 and joined Carnation Company as senior analyst, marketing research, in 1983, just prior to the firm’s acquisition by Nestlé. Buday served in positions of increasing responsibility at Nestle over nearly four decades, culminating in his appointment as senior vice president, head of marketing and consumer communication in 2008 — a position he held until his retirement in 2020.

Buday remains focused on purposeful brands as co-CEO of Emission Free Generators, a company committed to providing clean, grid-independent electricity using zero-emission portable generators.

He also served as a member of Facebook’s Client Council and Twitter’s Influencer Council, providing advertiser perspective and input to the development of their respective products and platforms, and is a member of the Smeal Board of Visitors.

Linda Buday graduated from UCLA in 1975 with a degree in history. She worked as vice president of branch operations at Westwood Savings and Loan in Los Angeles when the couple met, but stepped away from her career when Buday received his first international assignment in Switzerland in 1999.

While overseas, Linda Buday taught English to non-English-speaking professionals.

Reflecting on the importance of the marketing profession in advancing sustainability initiatives, a strategic priority of the college, John and Karen Arnold Dean Charles H. Whiteman said it was important to prepare students to help consumers envision new realities and inspire new habits.

“Smeal marketing students are clamoring for content surrounding sustainability and purposeful brands, and our faculty have responded by bringing relevant cases, materials and projects, as well as their own research interests, into the classroom. The Budays’ generous gift will help Smeal position itself as the preeminent destination for learners interested in working with purposeful brands, and I am incredibly grateful to Tom and Linda for their vision and support,” Whiteman said.

The gift will provide financial resources to Smeal’s Department of Marketing to develop new course content or cocurricular experiences and enhance existing opportunities across the marketing curriculum to further the study of purposeful brands.

According to Meloy, the Tom and Linda Buday Purposeful Brands Excellence Fund will support initiatives such as new curricula, career expeditions, guest speakers, experiential learning opportunities and research grants.

The Budays, who also endowed the Buday Family Trustee Scholarship in 2016, are committed to creating a positive impact for Smeal students.

“Linda and I want Smeal to be considered the best in its class in preparing students to manage and lead purposeful brands and to deliver the trifecta of impact contributions: enhance customers’ lives, deliver superior results and contribute positively to society,” Buday said. “That is how we’ll define success.”

With the record-breaking success of “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” which raised $2.2 billion from 2016 to 2022, philanthropy is helping to sustain the University’s tradition of education, research and service to communities across the commonwealth and around the globe. Scholarships enable our institution to open doors and welcome students from every background, support for transformative experiences allows our students and faculty to fulfill their vast potential for leadership, and gifts toward discovery and excellence help us to serve and impact the world we share. To learn more about the impact of giving and the continuing need for support, please visit raise.psu.edu.