Pearson Canada - Philip Kotler, Gary Armstrong, Peggy H. Cunningham, Valerie Trifts - Principles of Marketing, Eighth Canadian Edition > About the Authors

Philip Kotler is the S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received his master's degree at the University of Chicago and his PhD at MIT, both in economics. Dr. Kotler is the author of Marketing Management (Pearson Prentice Hall), now in its thirteenth edition and the most widely used marketing text book in graduate business schools worldwide. He has authored dozens of other successful books and has written more than 100 articles in leading journals. He is the only three-time winner of the coveted Alpha Kappa Psi award for the best annual article in the Journal of Marketing.

Professor Kotler was named the first recipient of two major awards: the Distinguished Marketing Educator of the Year Award, given by the American Marketing Association and the Philip Kotler Award for Excellence in Health Care Marketing, presented by the Academy for Health Care Services Marketing. His numerous other major honours include the Sales and Marketing Executives International Marketing Educator of the Year Award; the European Association of Marketing Consultants and Trainers Marketing Excellence Award; the Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award; and the Paul D. Converse Award, given by the American Marketing Association to honour "outstanding contributions to science in marketing." In a recent Financial Times poll of 1000 senior executives across the world, Professor Kotler was ranked as the fourth "most influential business writer/guru" of the twenty-first century.

Dr. Kotler has served as chairman of the College on Marketing of the Institute of Management Sciences, a director of the American Marketing Association, and a trustee of the Marketing Science Institute. He has consulted with many major U.S. and international companies in the areas of marketing strategy and planning, marketing organization, and international marketing. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, advising companies and governments about global marketing practices and opportunities.

Go Back to Top

Gary Armstrong is the Crist W. Blackwell Distinguished Professor of Undergraduate Education in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds undergraduate and master's degrees in business from Wayne State University in Detroit, and he received his PhD in marketing from Northwestern University. Dr. Armstrong has contributed numerous articles to leading business journals. As a consultant and researcher, he has worked with many companies on marketing research, sales management, and marketing strategy.

But Professor Armstrong's first love has always been teaching. His Blackwell Distinguished Professorship is the only permanent endowed professorship for distinguished undergraduate teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been very active in the teaching and administration of Kenan-Flagler's undergraduate program. His administrative posts have included Chair of Marketing, Associate Director of the Undergraduate Business Program, Director of the Business Honors Program, and many others. He has worked closely with business student groups and has received several campuswide and Business School teaching awards. He is the only repeat recipient of the school's highly regarded Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, which he has received three times. Most recently, Professor Armstrong received the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching honour bestowed by the 16-campus University of North Carolina system.

Go Back to Top

Peggy Cunningham is the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Management, and the R. A. Jodrey Chair in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. She joined Dalhousie University in January 2009 after serving as a professor at Queen's School of Business for 19 years. Dr. Cunningham has also worked in the U.K., Germany, China, and the U.S. Her teaching and research focus on brand management, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and partnerships within the field of marketing. Her research is published in a number of journals including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the California Management Review, and the Journal of International Marketing. Professor Cunningham is also an acclaimed teacher. Her awards include the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Leaders in Management Education award, the Academy of Marketing Science's Outstanding Teacher, and the Frank Knox Award for Teaching Excellence. She has written over 40 cases, and she is the co-author of three marketing textbooks.

Go Back to Top

Valerie Trifts is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Dalhousie University School of Business. She received her undergraduate business degree from the University of Prince Edward Island, her MBA from Saint Mary's University, and her PhD in Marketing from the University of Alberta. Her primary research interests are in the area of consumer information search and decision making. Specifically, she is interested in how firms can benefit from strategically providing their customers with information about competitors, as well as exploring individual difference variables that influence search behaviour. She integrates her research into a variety of courses she teaches, which include introduction to marketing, consumer behaviour, Internet marketing, and marketing research at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research has been published in Marketing Science and the Journal of Consumer Psychology, presented at numerous academic conferences, and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Go Back to Top