About Us
Susan Schwartz McDonald, Ph.D. President & CEO
As President and CEO of National Analysts Worldwide, and leader of the firm's Healthcare practice, Susan Schwartz McDonald consults to clients on strategic marketing issues including demand forecasting and optimization, pricing, positioning, portfolio strategy, and brand equity assessment.
Susan is a specialist in both segmentation and the application of forecasting techniques to healthcare markets, having supported the launch of many pharmaceutical products and medical technologies in a wide range of therapeutic areas. Other categories in which she has extensive experience include OTC pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, and mass media.
Susan also directs the Litigation Support practice of National Analysts Worldwide. In that context, she is frequently called upon to conduct surveys and testify as an expert in marketing and market research methodology in cases pertaining to trademark confusion and dilution, unfair advertising, and other issues under the Lanham Act.
Most of Susan's 35-year marketing career was spent at Booz-Allen Hamilton, a worldwide management and technology consulting firm, of which she was a Vice President for over five years. Her early professional years were spent as a journalist and a poet, contributing regularly to a number of major magazines and newspapers, including National Review and Harper's. Susan is also coauthor (with Alfred Goldman) of a standard text on qualitative research methods, The Group Depth Interview: Principles and Practice (Simon & Schuster/Prentice Hall). She lectures and writes frequently on marketing issues and market research techniques, and has contributed to medical journals as well as marketing texts. She is currently at work on the history of the market research field.
Susan is the 2011-2012 Past Chair of the CASRO Board of Directors (Council of American Survey Organizations). She also serves on the Board of Directors of The Wistar Institute, a biomedical research institute and designated NCI Cancer Center dedicated to discoveries in immunology, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and aging. In 2009, Susan was the recipient of the R. R. Fordyce Award for contributions to the healthcare market research industry.
Susan holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School, where she was trained in communications theory and social psychology. Her B.A. was awarded magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Smith College in 1969.