Donald E. Sexton

Professor Donald E. Sexton is well-known as a writer and speaker in the fields of marketing and branding strategy, global marketing, and marketing return on investment.

He received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and his B.A. from Wesleyan University, all in the disciplines of mathematics and economics. For more than fifty years he served as a member of the regular faculty of Columbia University, teaching in the areas of marketing, international business, and quantitative methods and receiving the Business School's Distinguished Teaching Award. Don served as the President of the Association for International Business Education and Research, a consortium representing 33 leading universities.

Don played a major role in designing, developing, and serving as Faculty Director of the Columbia Marketing Management Program, for many years rated number one in the world by the Financial Times. He also served as Faculty Director of the Columbia Executive Programs in International Management, International Strategy, and Building and Managing Brand Equity. He was Program Director for the Conference Board’s Annual Conference on Marketing Effectiveness and for their Councils on Marketing Research. Served as co-chair of the MarCom Committee of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board and Academic Director of Advertising Research Foundation University. Member of the NY American Marketing Association Board, Past President of the NY AMA, and AMA representative to China.

For several years Don was a visiting professor at INSEAD and at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. He has also taught at the University of California-Berkeley, the Indian School of Business, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Skolkovo (Moscow School of Management), Beijing Management Institute, Australian Graduate School of Management, University of Hawaii, University of Tehran, Industrial Management Institute (Tehran), Jagiellonian University (Krakow), and the U.S. Business School in Prague. He has been a frequent conference speaker for the ANA and other organizations and is often interviewed and quoted in media such as the New York Times, Business Week, Ad Age, WCBS, the Xinhua News Agency, and Beijing’s China Economic Daily.

Don’s research and writings focus on the design and implementation of marketing and branding strategies, both domestic and global, and the evaluation of marketing ROI. He received the Marketing Trends award for his work on marketing and branding strategy and awards from the ARF and ESOMAR for his research on marketing metrics with Cogitaas. He is the US Editor of Journal of Marketing Trends and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Advertising Research and Innovar. His many articles have appeared in publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Business, and Management Science. His book on marketing strategy, Marketing 101 (Wiley), is sold throughout the world and has been translated into several languages including Chinese, Turkish, Polish, Farsi, Romanian, and Indonesian. His Branding 101 (Wiley) is translated into Russian and Vietnamese. His book, Value Above Cost: Driving Superior Financial Performance with CVA^®, the Most Important Metric You’ve Never Used (Wharton) explains how marketing and branding determine financial performance and is available both in English and in Chinese.

Don is the founder and president of The Arrow Group, Ltd., an organization that develops and conducts executive seminars and provides consulting services in marketing and branding strategy and in marketing and branding ROI. He also provides expert testimony. His clients have included GE, Unilever, Verizon, Citicorp, Sony, IBM, AT&T, Novartis, Pepsi, Boeing, Kellogg’s, DuPont, Kodak, Motorola, Pfizer, Grainger, MetLife, Omnicom, Brown-Forman, McGraw-Hill, VNU, medcohealth, Eastman Chemical, Intuit, Bacardi, UNICEF, Merck, AIG, Domino's, Abbott, Corning, Dial, Alitalia, Wendy’s, Metropolitan Opera, Avon, Chase, Shell, Zeiss, Dow Corning, Mattel, Hershey, Hormel, Miller Brewing, Symantec, Florida Power & Light, Hallmark Channel, Sanofi-Aventis, Volkswagen, Becton Dickinson, and Coca-Cola.

He is rated a Master Scuba Diver and his interests include wreck diving and motorcycling. His paintings of urban scenes have won many awards and are in collections in Europe, the United States, and Australia. Don regularly performs stand-up comedy at the Broadway Comedy Club in Manhattan and at other locations in New York and Connecticut.

Updated June 20, 2023