Gordon Harris is an urban planner, development strategist, and real estate market analyst.
As President and CEO of SFU Community Trust, he is also leading the development of UniverCity, an award-winning community on land owned by Simon Fraser University, near Vancouver, British Columbia. The Trust, a global leader in sustainable community development, generates endowment wealth for teaching and research at SFU.
Harris’s early career took him from urban planning into private-sector institutional and retail real estate development. He then spent two decades as an independent consultant, providing urban land planning services, strategic development advice, market intelligence, and economic analysis to public- and private-sector clients across Canada and in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Central America.
A popular lecturer on sustainable development, planning and economic analysis, and on of planning for an aging population, Harris also serves on the National Capital Commission’s Planning, Design and Realty Advisory Committee, the Urban Land Institute advisory board, the Urban Development Institute’s executive committee, and the British Columbia Arts Council. In 2013, Harris received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contributions to community building in Canada.