Georgetown scoops dean from Harvard Business School

David Thomas has become the latest Harvard Business School professor to leave the institution to become dean elsewhere. The professor of organisational behaviour will become dean of the McDonough school at Georgetown University in Washington DC from August 1.

Within the past year Peter Tufano has decided to leave Harvard to be dean of the Saïd school at Oxford University, in the UK, and Harvard marketing guru John Quelch has taken the top job at Ceibs in Shanghai.

The McDonough school, a Jesuit business school, teaches undergraduate, MBA and executive education programmes and has two executive MBA degrees, one in conjunction with Esade Business School in Spain. Prof Thomas says he hopes to work with the faculty and others “to continue the tradition of groundbreaking research and teaching excellence that is bringing it to pre-eminence among the world’s leading business schools.”

Prof Thomas, who has taught at Harvard since 1990, is a specialist in executive development, cultural diversity in organisations, leadership and organisational change. He also served as senior associate dean and director of faculty recruitment at Harvard between 2005 and 2008.

Prof Thomas will replace George Daly, who was dean at NYU Stern before joining Georgetown.

msb.georgetown.edu