Interview: Stanford Interim Dean Peter DeMarzo

With more than 20 years as a faculty member at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Peter DeMarzo, The John G. McDonald Professor of Finance, is uniquely qualified to be interim dean. DeMarzo is serving in the position while a search is underway to replace Jonathan Levin, who has become Stanford University’s 13th president. In this interview, DeMarzo talks about his involvement at Stanford GSB, what makes the school special, and his hopes for its future.

Q: You’ve been a graduate student at Stanford and a faculty member and senior associate dean at Stanford GSB. What do you bring from those experiences to your interim deanship?

DeMarzo: “Indeed, I have been extremely fortunate to experience Stanford and the GSB from multiple perspectives. As a student, I was first drawn to the GSB for its leadership in innovating new strategic frameworks to understand management problems and develop their solutions. I feel extraordinarily lucky that I could return as a faculty member and directly contribute to the GSB’s mission — collaborating in research with my incredibly talented colleagues and teaching the next generation of leaders.

Most exciting for me is how much I get to learn every day from my peers and from the students; together, they continually inspire me to work to strengthen the connection between theory and practice. Finally, as a senior associate dean and now interim dean, I have the honor and privilege to appreciate and build on the many touchpoints of the GSB, through its staff and centers, its alumni, and its relationship with the campus and the broader scientific and practitioner communities.”

To read the full interview, click here.

DON’T MISS: Meet The Stanford GSB MBA Class Of 2025

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Olympic Lessons: London Business School Olympians Share Their Stories

Ryan Owens and Jack Gower are atypical LBS graduates. The path that brought them to the MBA programme is, to put it mildly, unusual.

Both men are professional athletes and Olympic champions. Jack placed 12^th for Ireland in the alpine skiing competition at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, while Ryan picked up the silver medal for Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, breaking existing records at the men’s cycling team sprint.

Preparing for the Olympics and making their mark as world-class athletes in their respective disciplines takes unwavering and single-minded dedication to the sport; a relentless and often gruelling regime of training and self-discipline that characterises both men’s lives.

To read the full story, click here.

DON’T MISS: London Business School Triumphs In The MBA Olympics

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Northwestern Kellogg Faculty Awarded $20 Million Grant From National Science Foundation

A research program led by faculty from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, in collaboration with faculty from the university’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been awarded $20 million from the National Science Foundation for work on measuring, understanding, predicting and accelerating technology innovations. While scientific and technological advances are key drivers of economic growth and rising standards of living, the ability to assess and predict how, when and which research ideas and investments will lead to successful applications remains elusive. The Kellogg-McCormick program uses an innovation database of faculty research discoveries and artificial intelligence tools to help unlock this “research-to-market” pathway more quickly — by, for example, creating a new basis for measuring, assessing and predicting technology innovations to developing frameworks that can more rapidly identify new opportunities for innovation.

“Universities are the most important source of the innovations and discoveries that impact people around the world,” said Francesca Cornelli, dean of the Kellogg School of Mangement. “Having leaders in both business and hard science working together to accelerate these discoveries will lead to even more benefit. By fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for each other’s expertise, we can harness the power of innovation to create value and impact at scale.”

To read the full story, click here.

DON’T MISS: 10 Years Of Kellogg’s Zell Fellowship: ‘If Everyone Is Going Left, Look Right’