Donald Macdonald, 83; Dow Jones Exec Is in Advertising Hall of Fame

Donald Macdonald, 83, a veteran executive of Dow Jones & Co. who aided its international expansion by launching the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal Europe, died Friday in Red Bank, N.J., of unspecified causes.

Macdonald, a vice chairman emeritus and a retired director, was with Dow Jones from 1953 to 1987. He grew up in New Jersey and served in combat in Italy during World War II.

He later earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a master’s from its graduate school of business administration.

Beginning as an advertising salesman in New York, Macdonald rose through Dow Jones’ ranks to become a director in 1977 and vice chairman in 1979. He led the acquisition of shares in the far Eastern Economic Review and then launched the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal in 1976. He established the European edition in 1983.

Inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1985, Macdonald was the final chairman of the Advertising Federation of America and the first chairman of the American Advertising Federation, created in a 1967 merger.

He wrote “Arrows in My Quiver,” a memoir about his advertising career.