Gerald (Gerry) Gorn
The Gerald Gorn Research Seminar Series was established by the UBC Sauder Marketing & Behavioural Science Division, together with Gerry’s son, Michael Gorn, and the Gorn family. The series honors Gerry’s extraordinary contributions to marketing scholarship, celebrates his life’s achievements, and preserves his enduring connection to UBC Sauder and the many colleagues, students, and collaborators whose work he profoundly shaped.
Across a distinguished career, Gerry helped define the landscape of modern marketing research. He was a pioneer in bridging consumer behavior with core marketing strategy in advertising, branding, product and design decisions, international and cross-cultural marketing, and marketplace communication. His work is widely recognized for its creativity, theoretical clarity, and methodological rigor, and it has influenced generations of researchers and practitioners. Over the course of his career, he authored or coauthored more than 100 scholarly publications.
Gerry was also a deeply committed mentor. His legacy is reflected in the success of his students, many of whom became distinguished scholars and academic leaders—including Dr. Darren Dahl, Dean of the UBC Sauder School of Business, who was Gerry’s doctoral student. In this way, Gerry’s legacy at UBC endures not only through his research but also through the intellectual communities he helped build.
Born in 1944 , Gerry earned a BA (Sir George Williams), MSc (London School of Economics), and PhD (Pennsylvania State). His academic journey included faculty appointments in Canada, first at McGill University and later at the University of British Columbia (1980-1997). He subsequently moved to Hong Kong, serving as Head of Department at HKUST and later as Chair Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2013–2019). Gerry passed away on November 29, 2023.
Through this seminar series, we celebrate Gerry’s intellectual spirit and provide a forum for frontier marketing research that reflects his impact and his lasting ties to UBC Sauder.