Aston appoints US wealth manager as next dean

Aston Business School in the UK has appointed the boss of a US wealth management company as its next dean. George Feiger, chief executive of California-based Contango, will join the Birmingham business school in June.

Austrian-born Mr Feiger, who lived in the UK for 10 years in the 1980s and 1990s, says the strength of the undergraduate programme, together with the school’s focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, are two of the things that attracted him to the school. “If we can lead in enhancing the performance of small and family-run businesses in the UK we will have tools that are applicable around the world because these businesses are the backbone of growth everywhere.”

Mr Feiger’s background combines business and academia. As well as his role at Contango, he has been head of strategic planning at the Bank of America’s world banking division and the global head of onshore private banking for UBS, as well as a senior partner at McKinsey. In academia, he has been director of the Berkeley Centre for Law, Business and Economics, and conducted research and teaching at both Harvard and Stanford Universities.

“You might say that I have been both a seller and a buyer of the products of business schools,” he says.

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