Johns Hopkins Builds a B-School from Scratch

The elite research university launches a new Global MBA program in August. On the to-do list: AACSB accreditation, faculty, and money

By Alison Damast

For years, Johns Hopkins' business offerings—mostly part-time degree and certificate programs—lingered in the shadow of the university's internationally renowned medical and public health schools. That all changed in 2006 when the university received a $50 million gift from banker William Polk Carey, leading to the founding of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2007 and a new lofty mission to become one of the world's leading business schools. That vision will be put to the test this August when the school launches its new Global MBA program, with a curriculum that the school's inaugural dean, Yash Gupta, says seeks to reinvent the modern MBA.

"Since we are the new kids, we don't have to change culture; we are building a culture," Gupta says. "We are trying to change the mold."

All eyes in the management education world will be on the new B-school in the coming year, as Gupta essentially builds a new MBA program from scratch, a daunting task that few universities have been eager to take on in the last decades. The Carey School is seeking to distinguish itself by designing a curriculum that will capitalize on Johns Hopkins' strength in fields like medicine and public health, have a focus on emerging markets and ethics, and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

To accomplish this, the school has recruited Gupta, a B-school dean with a proven fundraising track record and 14 years of experience, and installed him in leased office space in Baltimore's Harbor East area that Carey now calls home. Gupta's most recent deanship was at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (Marshall Full-Time MBA Profile), where he helped raise $55 million. Since his arrival at Johns Hopkins, Gupta has spent much of his time recruiting students, designing courses, and hiring a new cohort of top research faculty, with the ultimate goal of putting the Carey School in a position where it can compete with the world's top B-schools. The school is in the process of obtaining accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), an essential credential that the school will need to get students and the business school community to take it seriously. Says Gupta: "We want to play in that sandbox."

Challenges Ahead

It's an ambitious goal for a fledgling business school, which still faces a number of significant challenges ahead, says John Fernandes, the AACSB president. The school already has a number of things working in its favor, perhaps the most important being the world-renowned Johns Hopkins brand, which will help the school establish itself as a serious player early on, and what appears to be a unique niche focus for its MBA program, Fernandes says. But in the next few years, the school will have to obtain accreditation, launch a major fundraising campaign, build up its alumni network, ramp up its career services offerings, and continue to attract top-rate faculty. Says Fernandes: "It's not an easy task to go from nothing to a top school in a very short period of time."

The last large university to open a new B-school was the University of California, San Diego, which opened the Rady School of Management (Rady Full-Time MBA Profile) in 2003 after receiving a $30 million gift from businessman Ernest Rady. Robert Sullivan, the school's inaugural and current dean, says he faced numerous challenges: hiring faculty for a school with no track record; launching an executive education program to help pay the bills; and raising $110 million for a new building and other expenses, no small feat when you have no highly placed MBA alumni to tap for cash. He even had to borrow faculty from other schools. Says Sullivan: "It was really kind of Band-Aids for the first year."

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