Alan has a B.Sc. Honours Sociology from the LSE in the UK, and an MBA and Ph.D. in Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business, York University.

His 25-year practitioner career includes marketing roles with the Universal Oil Products Company (UOP Inc.) in Chicago and Esso Petroleum in Oslo, Norway, and a career in advertising with the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) advertising agency. He worked in London, England and then Toronto, where he was President of Enterprise Advertising Associates, a JWT subsidiary. He then became President/CEO of JWT Japan, the third largest operation in JWT worldwide after the US and UK and was made Executive Vice President and a Board Director of the worldwide J. Walter Thompson company.

Alan co-authored the book “Advertising Works II”, and has published papers on Marketing Communications ROI and Client-Agency compensation strategies. He is presently working on a paper on Client – Agency Relations. He is co-author of the book “Ikonica-a field guide to the Canada’s brandscape” scheduled for publication in May.
He is a co-founder of the ‘Cassie’ advertising awards, and in 2005, he was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends in the mentor category.