Education Business August 2, 2010, 3:35PM EST

In Search of Deans, B-Schools Eye Top Execs

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Former Execs Lead at Ohio State, Wake Forest

In the last few years, at least two other business schools in the U.S. announced they were naming former executives as dean.

Most recently, Christine Poon, the former worldwide chairman of pharmaceuticals at New Brunswick (N.J.)-based Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), the world's largest health-products company, joined Ohio State's Fisher College of Business in 2009, becoming the school's first dean to come directly from the private sector. Since arriving, she's established new programs in health care and energy, and forged partnerships with companies like Dublin (Ireland)-based Accenture (ACN), Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY), and Dublin (Ohio)-based Cardinal Health (CAH).

"I do think that having the experience in the corporate world has influenced how I approach the role," Poon said in a telephone interview on July 28. "I'm a much more externally facing kind of dean, and am spending a lot of time with the business community, trying to connect them with the college in as many ways as I can."

In 2008, Wake Forest University's Schools of Business appointed Steve Reinemund, former CEO of PepsiCo (PEP), the beverage and snack-food company based in Purchase, N.Y., as dean. He quickly used his management background to help implement change at the school, he said in a telephone interview on July 27.

About a month after he arrived, he hired a management consulting firm that in 90 days helped the school revamp its system for performance reviews and salary increases for professors, giving faculty the option of deciding whether they want to spend more time on teaching or research. Under his leadership, the school has launched a new Master of Arts in Management program for undergraduates with liberal arts backgrounds who are considering business careers. He's also helped raise money for a new building that will house both the school's graduate and undergraduate programs; the school has received $25 million so far for the new building and expects to raise an additional $20 million by the end of the year, Reinemund said.

"We have a very aggressive provost and president at Wake Forest, so the school has a strong desire to continue to get better," he said. "It's been every bit as challenging as any corporate experience I've ever had."

Combination Doesn't Always Work

Sometimes the partnership between the former-executive-turned-dean and the business school doesn't work out, as has been the case most recently in Europe, where three business schools have moved away from the CEO-to-dean model, said AACSB's Fernandes. John Wells, the former chief financial officer for Pepsi Europe, stepped down this summer as president of IMD (IMD Full-Time MBA Profile), a business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, after just 16 months in the job, the Financial Times reported on June 25. He has since been replaced by Dominique Turpin, a French professor of management and strategy at the school, as interim president, the school said in a news release on its website on July 1.

London Business School (LBS Full-Time MBA Profile) found itself in a similar situation not too long ago, when Robin Buchanan, a former senior partner at the global consultancy Bain & Co., stepped down as dean in January 2009 after 16 months in the role; he was replaced by Sir Andrew Likierman, a longtime professor at the school, according to a Dec. 22, 2008, press release on the London Business School website.

On July 9, the Financial Times reported that Dipak Jain, the former dean at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile), will be taking over as dean of INSEAD (INSEAD Full-Time MBA Profile), the business school with campuses in France, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. He'll be replacing Frank Brown, who spent 26 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, before joining the school in 2006. Brown is expected to step down at the end of his five-year term in 2011, according to the Financial Times article. INSEAD has not yet made an announcement about a new dean.

"Schools may be tempted to bring in someone that is proven in a professional capacity, but they don't always work out," Fernandes said. "A lot of 'corporate deans,' as they call them, crash and burn mostly because the environment is so different and faculty, as independent contractors, don't always have to march to the dean's drum."

Damast is a reporter for Businessweek.com.