Ilma Nur Chowdhury is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Marketing at Alliance Manchester Business School. She completed an MSc in Marketing (with Distinction) from AMBS and returned for her PhD here on a four-year MBS scholarship. Ilma also holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Major: Marketing, Minor: Human Resources Management). She graduated as the valedictorian of her class from the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka and was awarded the M.A.Taleb Gold Medal. While at university, she was one of the six global recipients of the ‘Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship’ awarded by Zonta International.

Ilma's research expertise focuses on social sustainability, sustainable value creation in service supply chains, serving vulnerable communities, digital responsibility, and the role of service management in emerging markets. She has published in leading academic journals such as Journal of Operations Management (FT50), Industrial Marketing Management,  and Journal of Business Research.

Ilma has corporate work experience as a manager in the Brands and Development function of Unilever Bangladesh where she was responsible for the brand Rexona (Sure) and later Surf Excel (Surf) and Vim (Cif). On completion of her MSc, she worked as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka and as a Visiting Lecturer at North South University Business School. She has also worked as a Research Associate at North South University on the Investment Climate research project funded by International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group).

Ilma holds an International Diploma in Teaching and Training (City and Guilds, London) and she is a Chartered Marketer (MCIM, Chartered Institute of Marketing). In 2023, she co-developed and delivered the first digital marketing course in the MSc Marketing programme.

She was appointed as an external advisory board member at the award-winning ethical and sustainable investment firm, Castlefield Manchester in 2021 (New Member on Castlefield External Advisory Committee) and was one of the founding members of the AMBS Equality, Diversity & Inclusion committee where she served for eight years (2015 - 2023).

Ilma’s research interests are focused on service management and business-to-business marketing fields. Her current research areas consist of social sustainability, sustainable value creation in service supply chains, serving vulnerable communities, digital responsibility, and the role of service management in emerging markets.

She has published in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Business Strategy and the Environment, and Journal of Marketing Education.

Postgraduate supervision opportunities

Ilma is interested in supervising research students in topics linked to the ones stated below. Ilma specialises in longitudinal and multiple case study-based qualitative research designs (utilising interviews/ focus groups/projective techniques/laddering/delphi technique/netnography).

PhD students sharing research proposals with Ilma should include multiple phases of qualitative research data collection in their methodology sections.

Sustainability and service supply chains

Transformative services (vulnerable customers, BoP customers, digital healthcare, artificially intelligent services, refugee support services)

• How services can help achieve the UN SDGs
• Sustainable (service) supply chain practices
• Sustainable service design
• Digital health services and their implications
• How sustainability practices using digital tools can ensure service inclusion

Social innovation 

• The role of services in addressing grand challenges

Practices that can help meet Net-Zero targets

Value creation at the bottom of the pyramid

Ilma was one of the founding members of the AMBS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee between 2015 and 2023, and contributed to the school's first Athena Swan Application. She helped develop the application process for the AMBS Carer Support Fund.

She was the Associate Head of Division for Social Responsbility and Engagement in the Management Sciences and Marketing Division in 2020-21 and launched the first divisional SR newsletter which brings together SR-focused teaching, research and enagement activities in Management Sciences and Marketing.

Ilma is an external advisory board member at the award-winning ethical invesment firm Castlefield, Manchester where she contibutes to decison-making on Environmental, Social and Govervance (ESG) issues.

As a postgraduate research coordinator, Ilma launched Doctoral Reseach Mornings to mentor doctoral students in the Management Sciences and Marketing Division, for example, by delivering seminars on linking their research to the UN SDGs and sharing tips on building academic careers.

Externally Funded Projects

In 2025, Ilma is collaborating on a Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) with colleagues from the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester to digitally optimize business processes incorporating sustainable service supply chain practices at a social enterprise Fusion21.

In 2023, Ilma was co-investigator in the Port of Dover research collaboration project (completed in 2024)

In 2020, Ilma was co-investigator on the EPSRC seedcorn grant funded project (DEAS Network Plus Covid-19 Charity/Voluntary Sector): “Using a bricolage strategy to enhance the human touch in digitally enhanced provision for refugee service users: a response to COVID-19” (completed in 2021). 

In 2021, Ilma was co-investigator on an EPSRC funded knowledge exchange project with charity organisation, Caritas Diocese of Salford: “From the Data Modelling Journey to an On-line tool to Support On-line Educational Refugee Services”. This project involved the launching of a toolkit to humanise digital services delivered to vulnerable groups such as migrants (completed in 2022).

Internally Funded Projects

• Designing transformative services for refugees - The objective of this project is to utilise services management theory to understand how refugee support service ecosystems can be developed in a way that empowers refugees and improves social integration. Multiple case studies will be used to explore the interactions between three levels of the current refugee support service ecosystem in the UK: the refugee level (micro), service provider level (meso) and government level (macro), using data collection methods such as interviews, observation and document analysis. This study holds important implications for multiple stakeholders including refugees, policymakers, and non-governmental and business organisations working towards the integration of refugees and can promote the design of services that reduces the vulnerability of the refugee community (completed in 2022).
• Social Business: Its Operations, Challenges and Implications in the Bottom Of The Pyramid (completed in 2016)
• Developing buyer and supplier capabilities for achieving social sustainability in the apparel supply chain (completed in 2015)

Consultancy 

• Design of marketing research instrument for Port of Dover, 2023

• Incorporating social purpose in brand reputation measurement, 2021

  Ilma has collaborated with a leading public relations agency in Manchester, Citypress, to research and develop the Reputation Assessment Profile (RAP) framework, which indicates the power of their clients’ brands. The incorporation of Approval in RAP reflects customer expectations about social responsibility. Increasingly, brands are expected to have a higher purpose which is aligned with one or more principles of sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion and Ilma has helped addressed this in RAP.

Ilma coordinates and delivers courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including Principles of Marketing, Services Marketing/Services Marketing Management, and Marketing in a Digital World.

Ilma co-developed and launched the first digital marketing course in the MSc Marketing programme, incorporating digital responsibility into the course.

Ilma also co-developed the course BMAN70252 Services Marketing: Sustainable Customer Experience Managment, and introduced sustainability, transformative service management and service inclusion concepts into this MSc elective.

Ilma incorporates playful approaches in her teaching using teachniques such as role playing, Lego Serious Play, and gamification.