Maryland’s Smith school appoints insider as dean

The University of Maryland’s Robert Smith School of Business has appointed Alexander Triantis as dean from September 1. Prof Triantis has been with the school for 17 years and will succeed Anand Anandalingam, who recently joined Imperial College Business School in London as dean.

In his new role, Professor Triantis will aim to build on the school’s student experience, alumni engagement and connections with the corporate world. As chair of the department of finance from 2006-11, he launched the masters in finance programme at Smith and established the school’s centre for financial policy, which connects faculty with Washington policy makers and is one of 10 specialist centres at the school.

“Our faculty do well on the research side of things but the question is how do we get that out to our community, especially the government community we have in our backyard,” says Prof Triantis.

The new dean is also conscious of the impact of technology on business schools and is looking forward to restructuring programmes to embrace this, starting with an online MBA programme in January 2014. “We are at a point where there are some really exciting changes in business education due to technology,” he says.

Prof Triantis’s research analyses corporate financial strategies related to investment, financing and risk management.

Before joining Smith, Prof Triantis was an assistant and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin and a visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has also consulted and provided executive training for clients including Airbus Industrie, Ernst & Young, Morgan Stanley and the World Bank.

The Smith school is one of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland. It teaches undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBAs, an executive MBA, and executive education programmes. It is ranked 50th in the FT Global MBA 2013 ranking.

www.rhsmith.umd.edu