People and Places: August 2025
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 Singapore Management University has appointed Zhang Liangdong as dean of the School of Accountancy. Liangdong previously served as the associate dean for research, a role he held for six years before accepting the role of deputy dean in 2023. Under his leadership, the school launched its inaugural PhD accounting program in 2017 and introduced a dual-degree PhD program with Renmin University of China in 2019. His research interests include financial reporting and disclosure, corporate governance, and taxation. He has also been an associate editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics since 2015 and the International Review of Finance since 2023 and editor of Corporate Governance: An International Review since 2020. Liandong began his new position on July 1 upon the departure of Qiang Cheng, who has served as dean since 2015 and is taking a yearlong sabbatical. |
 Kecia Williams Smith has been named interim dean of the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro. An alumna of the university, Smith spent nearly a decade working in public accounting and regulatory oversight before turning to academia, where she most recently served as director of Deese College’s Master of Accountancy program and the Center for Accounting Opportunities. Previously, she was an assistant professor of accounting and information systems at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. At Deese College, Smith succeeds Kevin James, who served as dean for five years. |
 Nicholas Hill has been selected as the next dean of the College of Business at Jackson State University (JSU) in Mississippi. The new position marks his return to JSU, where he held several leadership roles from 2012 to 2019, including director of the college’s PhD in business and interim department chair. He previously was dean of the Claflin University School of Business. Hill’s appointment at JSU was effective August 1. He replaces Fidelis Ikem, who was dean for six years and is now retiring. |
 On September 1, Ajay Khorana will become dean and professor of finance at the Lubin School of Business at Pace University in New York. Khorana is currently global treasurer of global consumer banking at Citigroup. In that role, he oversees strategic financial planning, risk management, and capital allocation for a 400 billion USD balance sheet. Khorana, who spent more than a decade working in academia before turning to finance, previously held faculty positions at the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He succeeds Lawrence Singleton, who is concluding a five-year tenure as dean and will take a sabbatical to focus on entrepreneurial ventures. |
 Vance Roley has stepped down as dean of the Shidler College of Business and the First Hawaiian Bank Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Management at the University of Hawai驶i (UH) at M膩noa. Roley, who has served as dean since January 2005, will return to the classroom at UH. As a dean who prioritized philanthropy, Roley partnered with alumnus Jay Shidler and secured funding to expand faculty endowments—from an initial six to now 43, increase scholarships, enhance student services, and support strategic programs at the college. Shidler’s donations, made in cash and real estate ground leases, total more than 230 million USD, representing the largest individual contribution in the university’s history. Roley also oversaw the 2019 reintegration of the School of Travel Industry Management, which brought more than 1.5 million USD in new scholarships and six faculty endowments. |
 Frank Ghannadian has announced he will retire as dean of the Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa in Florida. He will conclude his deanship following the 2025–26 academic year. Since Ghannadian began his deanship in 2007, the school has expanded the number of full-time faculty, created the Southard Institute for Sales Excellence (the institute’s naming and relocation were previously featured in our October 2024 People and Places posting), and added several new degree programs, including executive and online offerings. The University of Tampa will begin the search process for a successor immediately. |
New ProgramsThe Kogod School of Business at American University in Washington, D.C., will offer a new MS in business analytics and artificial intelligence, a redesign of a previous business analytics program. The new degree responds to shifts in the global workforce and will integrate advanced AI and machine learning techniques into the curriculum. Students joining the program will be able to tailor their education by taking elective modules alongside the core curriculum. Elective modules cover topics like sustainability, marketing, finance, forensic accounting, and data science. The program was also designed to provide participants with increased exposure to data manipulation, predictive modeling, data visualization, and prompt engineering, leveraging tools like R, Python, SQL, and Tableau. The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada has announced two new programs that will provide students with the necessary skills to succeed at different stages of their careers. The 11-month Master of Management (MMgt) program is designed for new graduates and young professionals with non-business backgrounds, including social sciences, humanities, science, or engineering. The MMgt will start in May 2026 and provide participants with a fundamental understanding of business and management topics while gaining exposure to the new applications of analytics and AI within organizations. Rotman will also offer a one-year MBA program for candidates who have prior academic and business experience. The program will leverage Rotman’s capabilities in experiential learning through the Creative Destruction Lab, a global startup program for seed-stage, science-based companies, the LEADS Mentorship Program, and other university initiatives. Starting in fall 2026, the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School will expand its full-time MBA program and offer a new hybrid Executive MBA (EMBA) from the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. The 15-month hybrid EMBA is tailored for working professionals with at least a decade of experience and will include AI and experiential learning throughout the curriculum. Johns Hopkins University also introduced Carey’s new nine-month MS in management, a full-time dual PhD/MBA with the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an accelerated MBA program for current Johns Hopkins graduate-level students or recent alumni, all of which will be added to the university’s main Baltimore, Maryland, campus. The Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville has launched an accelerated full-time MBA that students can complete in one year instead of 21 months. The new program features the same strategic corporate partnerships and networking opportunities as the traditional program and a reimagined curriculum. The college will also offer a merit-based graduate assistantship program, which offers fully-funded tuition plus a monthly stipend, lowering the financial barrier for high-potential professionals. The Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Canada and Pan-Atlantic University’s Lagos Business School in Nigeria are teaming together to launch a dual-degree pathway that will allow students to broaden their global networks. Students who are already enrolled in Lagos’ MBA and EMBA programs can choose to study in one of five master’s specialized programs at Smith —including a Master of Finance, Master of Financial Technology and Innovation, Master of Management Analytics, Master of Management in artificial intelligence, Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Master of Digital Product Management. Participants will earn a degree from both business schools. The University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business will offer a new certificate in organizational culture, beginning in the spring 2026 semester. The 16-week program is designed to equip leaders with the confidence and tools to build and maintain environments where both people and performance thrive. Through the coursework, participants will build their own culture creation plans and execution roadmaps specifically tailored to their organization and its needs. The certificate will be offered in a hybrid modality, with six online modules and two in-person residencies at the school’s California campus. CollaborationsChitkara Business School at Chitkara University in India and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen talent development and knowledge exchange. The partnership will focus on enhancing Chitkara University’s MBA in Human Resource Management, ensuring that students are equipped with relevant skills and perspectives. In addition, both schools will exchange opportunities for faculty and explore joint research and thought leadership initiatives aimed at advancing management education in the region. Grants and DonationsBoston University’s (BU) Questrom School of Business in Massachusetts has received an undisclosed “generous gift” from alum Raif Dinçkök to establish the Raif Dinçkök Student Forum Fund at the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets, and Society. The money will go toward student-led engagement initiatives that foster constructive dialogue and discourse on the role of business and global competitive markets in society. Among other initiatives, part of the funding will support the expansion and refinement of the Questrom Summit Series, initiated in 2024 by a group of BU students. Students can directly engage with invited business leaders in critical discussions about the design of effective corporate governance structures and regulatory frameworks, examining how these institutional foundations enable well-functioning markets and empower businesses to create long-term value for society. The fund will also support the development of student-led episodes in the Mehrotra Institute’s Is Business Broken? podcast series. Centers and FacilitiesLast month, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School signed an agreement to establish a new location for the school in Admiralty, on Hong Kong Island. The new addition to the school’s campus infrastructure will occupy over 30,000 square feet on the fourth level of the United Centre building in the region’s central business district. The site will serve as a hub of educational programming for working professionals, hosting MBA, part-time MSc, DBA, and non-degree executive programs. The University of Wisconsin–Madison will expand its entrepreneurial ecosystem by opening the cross-college Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub. At the new hub, students from all of the university’s schools and colleges, including the Wisconsin School of Business, will be able to transform their ideas into real-world impact. The hub will bring together research, education, and community engagement to develop entrepreneurial talent and launch impactful entrepreneurial enterprises. “By implementing a founder-focused approach, we can more fully embrace all forms of entrepreneurship that occur on our campus and in our economy and provide entrepreneurs with the support and infrastructure they need to strengthen the state’s economy and improve the world,” says Jon Eckhardt, appointed special advisor for the initiative and the Pyle Bascom Professor in Business Leadership. The University of Stirling’s Management School in Scotland was recently renamed the Stirling Business School. The renaming comes as the school earned its initial business accreditation from 樱桃导航 and was reaccredited by the Small Business Charter, a national accreditation for business schools across the U.K. and Ireland, last year. The new name reflects the university’s efforts to expand its global reach by providing students with a well-rounded education that encompasses all key business disciplines, not just management and leadership. Earlier this month, the University of Derby held an event to share an update on the Cavendish Building, which will soon be the new home of Derby International Business School in the U.K. The 75 million GBP (over 100 million USD) project is scheduled to open in September. The seven-story building will feature a creativity lab, an extended reality suite, a trading floor, and a Harvard-style lecture theater. In addition, the facility will serve as an incubator for entrepreneurial ventures, providing students with a space to work on live briefs and real consultancy projects. On August 8, Western Kentucky University’s Gordon Ford College of Business received approval to name the business school’s newest building. The 113,000-square-foot Amy and David Chandler Hall includes a virtual reality space and a trading lab with access to Bloomberg Terminals and will house the Department of Finance’s Center for Financial Success. The name honors a recent 7.5 million USD donation from Amy and David Chandler, who are alumni of the classes of 1993 and 1982, respectively. Several additional philanthropic named spaces within the new facility were also approved. The Amy and David Chandler Hall opened to students on August 18, the first day of the fall semester. If you have news of interest to share with the business education community, please submit press releases, relevant images, or other information to 樱桃导航 Insights via our online submission form at aacsb.edu/insights/articles/submissions/guidelines. |
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