Minnesota Carlson Names New Dean: Indiana Kelley Prof Jamie Prenkert

Though it conducted a national search, in the end, Minnesota Carlson’s 10-month pursuit of a new dean only needed to look a few states over in the U.S. Midwest.

The School of Management has named Jamie Prenkert to be the successor to departing Sri Zaheer, who will step down next year after more than a dozen years in the deanship.

Prenkert, the Charles M. Hewitt professor and executive associate dean for faculty and research at Indiana Kelley School of Business, was appointed the 13th dean of the Carlson School effective July 3, 2023, pending Board of Regents approval.

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Prenkert previously served the Kelley School as the chairperson of the Department of Business Law & Ethics and the associate dean of Academics. In 2017, Poets&Quants named him to our annual 40-under-40 top undergraduate professors list.

He currently oversees the research mission of the Kelley School and serves as the chief administrator for nearly 400 Bloomington-based faculty members in almost 30 distinct degree programs. In a letter announcing Prenkert’s appointment, Rachel T.A. Croson, Minnesota’s executive vice president and provost, highlights the new dean’s “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” adding that he “convened and served as ex officio on the Kelley School’s first diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) committee; organized a semester-long DEIB professional development series for faculty and staff; created and supervised the position of Kelley Bias Incident Support Ombudsperson; and envisioned, coordinated, and founded the Kinsey-Kelley Center for Gender Equity in Business, a collaboration with IU’s Kinsey Institute.”

Prenkert holds a J.D. from Harvard University and a bachelor of arts in political science from Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. He also served as the president of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business for the 2021-2022 academic year.

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At Indiana, Prenkert holds affiliated faculty appointments in the Center for Excellence for Women & Technology, Advocates + Allies for Equity; Center for the Study of Law, Society, and Culture; Ostrom Workshop; and African Studies Program. Before his academic career, he was a senior trial attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

When Poets&Quants profile Prenkert in 2017 for our annual 40-under-40 list, we asked him to describe his first time teaching with one word. He chose “exhila-timidating,” adding that while that’s not a real word, it accurately described the “potent mix of exhilaration and intimidation” of the moment.

“I loved every second of it and, at the same time, worried that I wasn’t going to meet the incredibly high standards of my business law colleagues at Kelley, who to a person were multiple award-winning teachers,” Prenkert wrote.

ZAHEER GREW CARLSON’S ENDOWMENT TO MORE THAN $300M

Prenkert replaces Sri Zaheer, who announced her resignation in March after more than 11 years as Carlson’s dean, including nine months as interim dean before assuming the permanent title in 2012. Zaheer will continue to serve as dean until July 2, 2023.

Only the second woman to serve as Carlson’s dean, Zaheer raised more than $200 million for the school, more than doubling the B-school’s endowment to over $305 million from $137 million. Under her leadership, the school brought in more than $106 million for scholarships alone. She led a major update to Carlson’s undergraduate curriculum which debuted this fall, and nearly doubled the number of degree programs to 13 from seven with new master’s in business analytics, supply chain management, finance, and marketing. She also led the launch of a successful online MBA program.

“The school is in a very strong position,” Zaheer told Poets&Quants in March. “Enrollments are off the charts. Our finances have never been stronger, and our results have never been higher. There are some great things we’ve accomplished.”

According to a letter to the Carlson School community from Minnesota Provost Croson, Zaheer will return to her tenured faculty position as the Elmer L. Andersen chair in global corporate social responsibility while also resuming a role on the editorial team of the prestigious Journal of International Business Studies.

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