Denver’s Daniels College Finds A New Dean In Virginia: Naomi Boyd

Naomi Boyd is the new dean of the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Courtesy photo

The University of Denver’s business school has completed its search for a new dean. The Daniels College of Business announced today (May 30) it has hired Naomi Boyd, currently the dean and professor of finance at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business in Richmond, to succeed outgoing Vivek Choudhury. Boyd begins her term as Daniels’ dean July 1.

Boyd, who has been dean at Virginia Commonwealth since June 2022, becomes the Daniels College’s 24th dean since its founding in 1908.

“It is a tremendous honor and privilege to have the opportunity to lead the Daniels College of Business during such a pivotal time in higher education,” Boyd says in a news release. “I look forward to getting to know the DU community in the coming months. Together, we will harness our collective strengths to elevate the Daniels College of Business to even higher levels, while creating a future trajectory that will change the lives of our students and impact the world in meaningful and powerful ways.”

AN IMPACTFUL CAMPUS VISIT

Boyd was a professor of finance at West Virginia University for nearly 14 years prior to joining VCU. She remains a faculty emerita at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at the university in Morgantown, West Virginia, according to her LinkedIn profile. Altogether she has more than 20 years’ experience in strategy, regulatory reform, fiscal management, programmatic development, and leadership.

During her tenure at VCU, Boyd oversaw the launch of five new centers and the establishment of multiple corporate partnerships, and research expenditures grew by a factor of eight. She also oversaw the substantial growth of both the undergraduate and graduate levels of the school.

“We are excited to welcome Dean Boyd to the Daniels community,” says Dan Baack, a professor of marketing and co-chair of the Denver search committee. “Her passion for faculty, staff and — most importantly — students rang clear throughout her campus visit. Her successes as a dean, associate dean, department chair, and faculty member, coupled with her understanding of the complexities of business education, impressed us.”

OUTGOING DEAN WAS SIGNEE OF PRO-IMMIGRATION LETTER

Among her previous academic roles at West Virginia, Boyd served as associate dean of the Chambers College and was the long-serving chair of its finance department. She earned a Ph.D. from George Washington University, an MBA in finance from Texas Tech University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Her academic research focuses on structural changes in markets and processes and their impact on the underlying microstructure.

Boyd’s predecessor, Vivek Choudhury, became dean in August 2019. He joined Denver from the George Washington University School of Business, where he was associate dean for strategic initiatives and professor of information systems and technology management. Prior to that, Choudhury spent more than a decade at the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner School of Business in varying faculty and leadership roles.

He was a signee to a highly publicized open letter from U.S. B-school deans to then-President Donald Trump in 2019 urging more open immigration policies that would allow for high-skilled immigrants, including faculty and students, to come to the U.S. in greater numbers — an effort to stem the “brain drain” that many saw occurring as a result of the Trump administration’s hard-line approach.

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