M. Venkatesan was Professor of Marketing at the University of Iowa in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he was the David L. Rike Professor of Marketing at Wright State University in the College of Business and Administration in Dayton, Ohio.
Professor Venkatesan specialized in consumer behavior and services marketing. He co-edited several works in the field of marketing, such as the proceeding Creativity in Services Marketing: Whats New, What Works, Whats Developing in 1986 for the American Marketing Association.