UW-Madison’s School of Business announced Wednesday Dr. Vallabh Sambamurthy will take over as dean come Aug. 1.
Sambamurthy comes to campus after spending 12 years at fellow Big Ten institution Michigan State University in various positions. Most recently, Sambamurthy served as the Eli Broad College of Business associate dean of MBA and professional master’s programs. He previously worked at business schools at the University of Maryland and Florida State University.
Sambamurthy holds degrees from two distinguished Indian universities: the National Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
Sambamurthy takes over the position from Anne Massey, who left the position after one semester as her plan to halt admission to the school’s two-year, full-time MBA program was met with controversy. She has since accepted a position at University of Massachusetts-Amherst's Isenberg School of Management as the school’s first female dean.
Barry Gerhart, a professor of management and human resources, served as interim dean since February 2018. He will return to his previous position at the school after Sambamurthy takes over.
Professor of marketing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Sridhar Balasubramanian was the runner-up for the position.
As the new dean, Sambamurthy will be in charge of “faculty and staff development, personnel oversight, fundraising, budget planning and management, curriculum, and student academic affairs,” according to the UW-Madison’s School of Business website.
Sambamurthy’s new responsibilities will include helping to allocate a budget of approximately $70 million to better the education for nearly 3,100 undergraduate and 600 graduate students, as well as assigning resources for 80 faculty members and 260 staff members.
His annual salary will be $480,000 with about $187,000 of the total salary coming from a private donor, according to WiscNews.
