Ahearne began his career as a visiting professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He then served on the faculties at the Pennsylvania State University from 1998 to 2001 and at the University of Connecticut from 2001 to 2004. Ahearne has since been a professor at the University of Houston, where he received the C.T. Bauer Chair in Marketing in 2010. He is also the Research Director of the Sales Excellence Institute, a foundation devoted to uncovering the key drivers of sales force performance.

At 18, the Montreal Expos signed Ahearne as a pitcher. The year was 1985 and he was assigned to Jamestown of the New York–Penn League. Ahearne later competed in collegiate wrestling and college football at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As a wrestler, he was a four-time All-New England performer, with his best showing being the 1990–1991 academic year when he finished 3rd overall in his weight class. In the same 1990–1991 academic year, Ahearne was selected to be an NCAA Scholar All-American for his academic achievements as a student athlete.

Michael Ahearne (born July 11, 1966) is Professor and C.T. Bauer Chair in Marketing at the C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. He is also the Research Director of the Sales Excellence Institute. He is an associate editor at several journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Service Research. He was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.