New Dean at Cornell

Cornell names two front-runners for dean’s job

When a business school hunts for a new dean, the process is usually covered with a shroud of secrecy and riddled with gossip. Not so at Cornell, where the Johnson school is looking for a supremo to replace Robert Swieringa when he steps down this summer. The university has published the names of the two short-listed candidates on its website.

The chosen two are David Besanko, professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg school at Northwestern University, and Elke Weber, professor of international business at Columbia.

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Prof Besanko, 51, earned his PhD from Kellogg and has taught there since 1991. In the interim he was professor at Indiana University. He was chair of Kellogg’s own dean search committee in 2000/1 and was also associate dean for academic affairs at Kellogg between 2001 and 2003.

Prof Weber, a Harvard PhD, has taught in many business schools, most notably Columbia, Ohio State and Chicago Graduate School of Business. She has held several visiting positions in European business schools, most recently at London Business School.