Dean, Boston University, Questrom School of Business

ROLE OF THE DEAN

Reporting to the Provost, the Dean of the Questrom School of Business is responsible for setting and implementing a strategic vision for the school’s education and research mission, overseeing scholarship, academic programming, student success and career development, financial management, and interactions between the school’s key constituents. Combining an entrepreneurial mindset with a commitment to working collaboratively with stakeholders across the University to further the strategic vision of the institution, the Dean is expected to pursue opportunities for development and fundraising, including active partnership in upcoming University campaigns.

With strong presence and communication skills, the Dean serves as an effective public face and advocate across a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. The Dean advances educational excellence, scholarly research, and public service by articulating and executing a compelling strategic vision that leverages the convergence of the disciplines, learning communities, and lived experiences at Boston University. The Dean elevates Questrom’s research by promoting scholarship and by recruiting, developing, and retaining exceptional faculty and staff.  The Dean provides strategic and operational leadership to ensure effective stewardship of financial, human, and physical resources, and will work on expanding resources through fundraising and stakeholder engagement.

THE CANDIDATE

The ideal candidate to lead Questrom as its next Dean is a distinguished scholar and academic leader with a track record of advancing research and fostering innovative academic programs, and a demonstrated ability to navigate the challenges and headwinds facing higher education.

Collaborative and entrepreneurial, this candidate will bring to Questrom and to Boston University substantial administrative leadership experience, strong ethical and inclusive orientation, and a proven record of success in fundraising, external local, national, and global engagement, coalition building, and forging strategic partnerships.

QUALIFICATIONS

To be considered, a candidate must possess a record of outstanding scholarly and professional leadership appropriate for a tenured full professor at Boston University. Additional qualifications for an ideal candidate include having a track record of:

• success in high-level coalition building and development of strategic partnerships across internal and external stakeholder groups in support of well-articulated academic priorities
• fostering successful, innovative academic programs by harnessing emerging and disruptive forces, with a particular awareness of changing student demographics, government funding, and the impacts of artificial intelligence
• academic leadership for advancing scholarly activities and impact aligned with the university’s research mission
• effective fund-raising and external engagement activities, including across alumni, corporations, and philanthropic organizations
• progressively responsible administrative experience, with an ability to cultivate an inclusive environment consistent with a strong ethical framing that values contributions across stakeholders, disciplines, departments, and functions  

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Dean will be responsible for

• Collaborative Leadership: establishing and sustaining productive partnerships that foster scholarly and educational integration among the University's schools, grounded in a deep commitment to University values and priorities, personal integrity, and institutional pride
• Strategic Visioning and Execution: articulating and executing a vision for Questrom’s strategic position in line with University priorities and engaging with internal and external stakeholders to realize the school's core missions of educational excellence, scholarly research, local and global engagement, and public service
• Resource Development: championing a culture of philanthropy and of corporate engagement by leading major fundraising efforts in partnership with institutional advancement goals to enhance stakeholder relationships and expand financial support for strategic initiatives
• Scholarly Advancement: enhancing Questrom’s research enterprise and impact by attracting and retaining outstanding scholars, fostering their research success, and developing mechanisms to fund and support their research efforts, including via research institutes and convergent University-based research programs
• Academic Innovation and Student Success: assessing and benchmarking existing programs to ensure their continued distinction and competitiveness, while advancing the design of new programs, innovative approaches to teaching and pedagogical excellence in support of strong career outcomes and holistic student development
• Strategic and Operational Oversight: directing the management structure and oversight processes to ensure effective utilization of Questrom’s financial, human, and physical resources, while promoting an inclusive and developmental culture across faculty, staff, and other stakeholder groups

QUESTROM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Founded in 1913, Boston University’s Questrom School of Business is a global top-tier academic research business school within one of the nation’s leading private research universities. More than a century after its founding, Questrom remains focused on developing business leaders who create value for the world. The School was named the Questrom School of Business in 2015 following a $50 million naming gift from alumnus and University Trustee Allen Questrom and his wife, Kelli.

Questrom is a large, diverse business school. Its full-time faculty of approximately 165 includes internationally recognized researchers, accomplished teaching faculty, and experienced practitioners. Questrom generates insights to address today’s business challenges and prepares students with the tools they need to succeed from Day 1 in their professional lives. Building off a distinguished faculty that includes 26 endowed chair positions, Questrom emphasizes research that informs business practices, policy decisions, and societal impact, integrating both disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches.

Research is central to Questrom’s identity. Faculty scholarship addresses issues ranging from digital and AI-driven transformation to markets and regulation, innovation and entrepreneurship, the future of work and leadership, healthcare, consumer behavior, and the role of business in society. Questrom has significant intellectual assets in its faculty, institutes, research initiatives, corporate relationships, and public-facing thought leadership, creating opportunities to connect rigorous scholarship more directly with practitioners, policymakers, students, and the broader public. Questrom is home to several key institutes supporting its scholarly mission, including the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets & Society, launched in 2024 with $51 million in raised endowment.

Questrom offers a competitive and well diversified portfolio of academic programs. This includes a Top 20 undergraduate program of over 2,200 students, reflecting a recently redesigned curriculum which provides flexibility in course selection and experiential learning opportunities, giving students an edge in an increasingly competitive market. Across its programs, Questrom combines academic rigor with an increasingly applied and employer-focused model of business education.

Questrom’s diverse graduate portfolio has a long track record of innovation. It offers a Full-Time and Part-Time Flex MBA, along with an innovative Online MBA designed as an accessible degree offering to working professionals around the world. Its MBA portfolio includes opportunities to develop deeper expertise in areas such as health, social impact, and digital technology. Specialized master’s programs span high-demand fields including business analytics, finance and fintech, management, and artificial intelligence in business. Finally, the school offers a rigorous PhD program, with recent high-level academic placements, including at top 10 business schools.

Three areas offer the next Dean distinct opportunities to shape the school's trajectory. Questrom's Boston location connects students and faculty to one of the world's most dynamic ecosystems for technology, healthcare, financial services, entrepreneurship, life sciences, and innovation. This setting constitutes a durable advantage in the recruitment and retention of distinguished faculty, and for unique and competitive programmatic and research initiatives that few peer institutions are positioned to replicate. Anchored in a university that puts an emphasis on convergent research, Questrom's faculty and programs complement BU’s strengths from computing, data science, and artificial intelligence to engineering, health and biomedical sciences, public policy, and law. These create fertile ground for cross-school programs, research collaborations, and university-wide initiatives at the intersection of business, economics, technology, and public impact.  Finally, Questrom’s more than 50,000 alumni supported by the Feld Center for Career and Alumni Engagement form a global network of leaders with considerable philanthropic potential that the next Dean will have an opportunity to leverage.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Boston University, a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), is one of the leading private research and teaching institutions in the world, with two primary campuses in the heart of Boston and programs around the globe.

Chartered in 1869, the University today enrolls more than 36,000 students, including over 17,000 undergraduates, and employs more than 4,000 faculty members across 17 schools and colleges offering more than 300 programs of study. Its current annual operating budget is approximately $2.5 billion. Moody’s Investors Service recently affirmed BU’s ranking of Aa3, reflective of the University’s increasing financial strength, growing donor support, and effective governance and leadership.

BU is one of the largest private research universities in the United States and one of the Boston area’s largest employers. BU’s students come from all 50 states and more than 180 countries. Students pursue studies on the Charles River and Medical Campuses as well as more than 75 study abroad and internship programs in over 25 cities around the world.

In the early 1970s, BU leaders made a conscious decision to raise the University’s standing and quality by marshaling resources to build an infrastructure for basic and applied research and to improve the campus by adding residential facilities. These facilities now include: the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences Duan Family Center, Boston’s greenest building to-date with a geothermal energy system and striking views of the city skyline, and state-of-the-art laboratories; the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering; CFA’s Booth Theatre; the preservation award-winning renovation of BU LAW; the residential high-rises that anchor the John Hancock Student Village; and a Fenway Campus based at the site of the former Wheelock College.

Nearly 460,000 alumni serve as ambassadors for BU with contributions that reach back to the earliest years of the University, deeply influencing events in every aspect of life, including civil rights, science and medicine, journalism, literature, business, government and politics, entertainment, broadcasting, popular culture, and sports. Today, BU continues to be a paragon of excellence, attracting the brightest and the best from across the world.

BU’s transformation is perhaps most evident in the national and international recognition achieved by faculty in diverse fields on both campuses and in prestigious grants to distinguished programs or departments. U.S. News & World Report ranked BU #42 in their 2025-26 rating of Best National Universities in the United States.

Looking ahead and guided by a Strategic Framework, BU is positioned to be the global destination of discovery, education, and human connection—a place of convergence where disciplines, communities, and realities merge and visionary thinkers unite to create transformative experiences and solutions for the world’s greatest challenges. At BU, convergence goes far beyond the sciences to build a culture where ideas and collaboration flow freely across disciplines, perspectives, realities, and communities—fueling scholarship that breaks new ground, shaping a student experience that prepares future leaders, and expanding our impact locally and across the world.

Compensation

Boston University will provide a competitive compensation and benefits package appropriate for a position of this scope, stature, and level of responsibility.

Application Process and Contact Information

A curriculum vitae (CV) and cover letter that describes how your experiences fit within the mission of Boston University and the Questrom School of Business must be submitted for full consideration by the committee.  While nominations and applications will be accepted until a new Dean is selected, interested parties are strongly encouraged to submit their materials before October 16^th, 2026 to ensure full consideration.

To apply: 

Application materials should be submitted to the Search Advisory Committee via email to Gina Ford, gford@bu.edu or through the Boston University Human Resources website.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, natural or protective hairstyle, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, or because of marital, parental, or veteran status. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.