Alvin J. Silk

1935 - 2021

Alvin J. Silk, a renowned marketing expert and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School, has died.
Al was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on New Year's Eve in 1935. The first of four children born to Jack and Lena and eldest brother to Valerie, Sandra and Ken, Al was a great storyteller. A favorite tale described growing up in Winnipeg about a block away from the Red River. Al was 15 in May 1950 when the Red River flooded, forcing over 40,000 people to flee the city as the river crested to 12.2 feet above channel capacity. While his mother and siblings evacuated, Al and his father stayed to pile sandbags in hopes of controlling the flooding and saving their home. Al and a school friend sat atop the sandbags, fishing poles in hand, to catch household items and furniture floating down the river. One such item was a modest wooden desk, that supported Jack's work as a highly successful door-to-door salesman for Fuller Brush and Watkins, and it remains in the family to this day.
Al's academic career began with earning his bachelor's degree with honors from Western University (Canada) in 1959, his MBA (with distinction) in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1968, both from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Following several years teaching at UCLA and the University of Chicago, Al joined the Sloan School of Management at MIT in 1968. After two decades including six years as deputy dean at Sloan, Al joined the Harvard School of Business in 1988. At HBS, he introduced "Brand Marketing" as an elective in the Harvard MBA Program and taught the course "Research Design and Measurement" in the School's Doctoral Programs. His research interests focused on the development and management of advertising campaigns and decision support systems in marketing. His alma mater, Western University, described him as "an influential scholar and educator in the field of marketing...internationally recognized for his research on models and measurement systems to support marketing decision-making and the economics of the advertising and marketing services industry." He authored numerous publications, including journal articles, working papers, book chapters, and case studies. In 2015, Al received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa (L.L.D.), in 2015 from The Ivey Business School at Western University. Although retired from his Harvard teaching responsibilities for more than a decade, in the last few years Al continued to be remarkably active in collaborating on research projects with faculty and graduate students at MIT. He recently published work exploring trends in outsourcing marketing (Marketing Science with Birger Wernerfelt and Shuyi Yu), and digitization of advertising (Foundations and Trends in Marketing with Ernst Berndt).
Al's passion for education extended to providing educational opportunities for his children, grandchildren, and for graduate students at the schools that impacted him. In 2013 he established an endowed chair at Harvard Business School to honor his late wife, Diane Doerge Wilson, to support an HBS faculty member whose interests include the intersection of gender with work, career, and family issues, a passion of Wilson's throughout her academic and professional career. In 2015 he endowed the Dr. Alvin J. Silk Graduate Scholarship at Ivey Business School at Western University. Most recently, he endowed the Alvin Silk Fellowship Fund at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and a doctoral student fellowship in marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Al was a caring son, brother, father, uncle, grandfather, and partner. He showed a keen – and occasionally critical – interest in what his family were doing, personally and professionally. He had an insatiable curiosity and enjoyed sending his family thought-provoking articles that he loved debating over phone calls, zoom calls and in-person. Al enjoyed nothing more than sharing a good meal with family and friends filled with boisterous conversation. Those closest to him knew they were being held to a higher standard and did their best to meet it. Always one to make a difference, in the end he was a tissue donor for burn victims and breast cancer survivors. His absence has left a significant gap for his family and friends alike. Beloved partner to Keri Jones. Dear father to Jonathan and his fiancée Michele, Andrea and her husband Paul, and Stephanie. Devoted grandfather to Jonathan Jr., Tankey, Kiah, Maysen, Nadeem, and Imane. Favorite uncle to Kimberly, her husband Jeffrey, and their son Thomas, and to Tim, his wife Letitia and their children Pierce and Olivia. Dearly missed by sister-in-law Janice. Predeceased by his parents, Jack and Lena, sisters Valerie and Sandra, and his brother Ken. Cremation has taken place. A private family service will take place in November, and a celebration of life for friends and colleagues is planned for the spring. Sympathy may be expressed through donations to any of the following charities which represent Al's personal and professional values: Carroll Center for the Blind; Decolonizing Wealth Project; Manitoba Metis Heritage Fund; NAACP; Planned Parenthood; Southern Poverty Law Center.