Among his other accomplishments as dean, Matthew Myers oversaw the Cox School’s MBA becoming a STEM program in 2021. File photo
It’s no exaggeration to call the nearly eight years of Matthew Myers’s tenure as dean of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University transformative.
Myers has overseen a massive expansion of the school’s footprint — not only physically, but by reputation as well. Since he joined Cox as dean in August of 2017 from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, where he was dean for three years, Myers has led a modernization of campus, a rise in the rankings, and successful building-up of the school’s endowment. His all-around success in making Cox a key player in business education was such that last June he announced he would step down this summer having achieved his 10-year goals with three years to spare.
On March 13, the Cox School announced Myers’s replacement: Todd Milbourn, corporate finance expert and Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance at Washington University’s Olin Business School. Milbourn will become the Cox School’s 10th dean and will hold the Tolleson Chair in Business Leadership effective June 1.
SMOOTH HANDOFF EXPECTED
Todd Milbourn will become SMU Cox’s 10th dean in June
In 2017, the year Myers took over as dean, the Cox School was 52nd in the U.S. News & World Report business school ranking. By 2024 it had risen to 34th. Meanwhile Cox is 45th in Poets&Quants‘ most recent MBA ranking and 21st in our 2025 ranking of top online MBA programs.
The Cox School also ranks 40th in U.S. News‘ undergrad ranking and 26th in our most recent ranking of undergraduate business programs.
Even as it rose in the rankings, the Cox School was growing in its Dallas-Fort Worth home. Breaking ground during the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to an initial $50 million gift from David and Carolyn Miller, the school opened the Miller Quad, a $140 million, 260,000-square-foot facility, in August 2023. Featuring state-of-the-art classrooms, advanced technology, and collaborative spaces designed to reflect the modern workplace, the Quad is “more than just a building; it represents a shift in how we educate business students,” Myers told P&Q last year. It may well be his crowning achievement. “For the first time, we have everyone — students, faculty, and staff — under one roof, which strengthens our family-like culture and fosters greater collaboration.”
Among the big curricular developments for the school under Myers’s leadership, the school’s MBA program went STEM in 2021. Cox has also partnered with SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering to integrate engineering and computer science into its business programs, a cross-disciplinary approach that “equips our students with the skills they need to excel in areas like AI, data analytics, and entrepreneurship.” The school recently “revamped the curriculum to be more hands-on and aligned with real-world business practices,” Myers told Poets&Quants Editor-in-Chief John Byrne in 2024.
Myers tells P&Q that after talking with Milbourn, he expects the handoff to the new dean to go smoothly.
“In speaking with Todd, I know he has tremendous respect for the accomplishments of the faculty, staff, and students at the Cox School, and will build on that legacy to continue Cox’s ascent to global prominence,” Myers says. “Todd’s commitment to excellence in teaching, scholarship, administrative leadership, and to community are readily apparent in both his record and his message.”
LED THE ROLLOUT OF NEW SPECIALIZED MASTER’S PROGRAMS
Over a 25-year tenure at WashU Olin, Milbourn has held multiple leadership appointments. He was senior associate dean of faculty and research from 2013 to 2017, vice dean of faculty and research from 2017 to 2022, and deputy dean from 2022 to 2023. Among his achievements in those roles: He increased the number of faculty members from 80 to 150 and improved research impact, expanded the Ph.D. program, led the rollout of several specialized master’s programs, and facilitated the establishment of four new research centers. As deputy dean, he helped lead the school’s strategic efforts to align with the broader university’s strategic plan and increase engagement with the St. Louis business community.
Milbourn is an expert on valuation, corporate finance, credit ratings and corporate governance, including executive compensation and its impact on long-term shareholder value, corporate decision-making and firm performance. He has been retained as an expert by private firms and the U.S. Department of Justice.
He is a coauthor of The Value Sphere: Secrets of Creating and Retaining Shareholder Wealth, and has published articles in leading scholarly journals, including Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Management Science, Journal of Accounting Research, and RAND Journal of Economics. He has received multiple awards from Washington University, including the Olin Award for Compensation Goals and Firm Performance, the St. Louis Founder’s Day Distinguished Faculty Award, the Olin Award for Faculty Research That Impacts Business. He won the Reid Teaching Award at Olin 15 times during his time there.
Milbourn previously taught finance at the London Business School and the University of Chicago before coming to Washington University. He earned a Ph.D. in finance in 1995 at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics, finance and mathematics from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois in 1991, where he was also a four-year varsity letterman as a high jumper for the track and field team.
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