Harvard Dean Search: 'Vision' a Must

In its search for a new dean, Harvard Business School has big shoes to fill and big challenges ahead

By Geoff Gloeckler

For the first time, the three top business schools in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek ranking of full-time MBA programs find themselves with vacancies in the dean's office.On Mar.25, we launched a three-part series examining the dean searches now underway at No.1 University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (Booth Full-Time MBA Profile), No.2 Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile), and No.3 Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile). In the first installment, we described the challenges that will be faced by the new dean at Chicago Booth and identified some possible contenders for the post. Today, in the second installment, we turn to Harvard.

When Harvard Business School celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2008, outgoing Dean Jay Light spoke at length about the importance of experiential learning and adapting the curriculum to serve students in a rapidly changing business world. He also touched on the need for globalization and a greater focus on leadership skills. It was a road map of the challenges the next dean at HBS will face.

During his five-year tenure as dean at HBS, Light led the iconic B-school through the worst of the financial crisis. The number of students with at least one job offer by graduation dropped 10% from 2008 to 2009, thanks to the down economy—a large number, but not the worst placement rate among top MBA programs. Light also increased the school's presence in Asia, opening a research center in India and the Harvard Center Shanghai, a research and teaching hub for students, faculty, and alumni across all of the university's schools.

Alumni Board Letter

The HBS dean search is one shrouded in mystery, with nary an announcement about who is on the search committee, let alone who's being considered for the job. All that is known is that Harvard President Drew Faust will be making the final decision. Soon after Light announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2010 school year, Faust reached out to the HBS community asking for suggestions on what kind of a person would be a good fit for the dean's position. The various HBS constituencies have not been shy about responding.

Ann Kelly, HBS Alumni Board president and partner at Global Philanthropy Group in Seattle, sent a letter to Faust on behalf of the school's 80,000 alumni. While the letter did not mention any potential deans by name, it laid out the characteristics the board feels the new dean should possess. Among them: strong leadership skills, an understanding and respect for HBS, a vision to keep the school relevant and lead it forward, and the ability to work with the larger Harvard University community. "We want someone who can be visionary, but not so visionary that you undo and unseat all of the good things that have been done in the past," Kelly says. "It's a tall order."

Others have suggested specific individuals.

In January, when The Harbus, the HBS student newspaper, surveyed students on who they thought would be the next dean, the clear front-runner was Joseph L. Badaracco, senior associate dean and chair of the MBA program. Based on his background, Badaracco seems like a good fit for the job. He's an HBS graduate and longtime professor of business ethics at the B-school. He has close ties to the university community, having served as chairman of the Harvard University Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and as a housemaster in Harvard College. As the current faculty chair of the Nomura School of Advanced Management in Tokyo, and a regular on the HBS executive education circuit, he also has global experience. Badaracco declined to comment.

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