BREAKING: Darden Names A New Dean: Longtime Prof Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Yael Grushka-Cockayne, an award-winning teacher, scholar, and academic leader, will become the Darden School of Business’s 10th dean on Aug. 1. She will be the first woman appointed as permanent dean in the school’s 70-year history. Darden photo

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business has tapped one of its own, naming vice dean and longtime faculty member Yael Grushka-Cockayne as the school’s 10th dean, effective Aug. 1. She becomes the first woman in the school’s 70-year history to hold the position permanently.

The announcement, made Monday by UVA officials, ends a national search launched earlier this year with the help of executive search firm Korn Ferry. As Poets&Quants reported in January, Grushka-Cockayne emerged as a clear frontrunner almost from the moment the search began, boasting credentials that were hard to ignore: a master teacher at a school defined by its teaching culture, a rising administrative leader, and one of business education’s most credible voices on artificial intelligence at a time when AI is redefining business education from the bottom up.

“Darden’s strength has always been its people and the deeply human approach to business education: rigorous, student-centered, grounded in discussion, community, and committed to developing responsible leaders who are prepared to make a positive impact in the world,” Grushka-Cockayne says in a news release. “In an age of artificial intelligence and constant change, our mission is more relevant than ever.”

AN INSIDER WITH BROAD REACH

Grushka-Cockayne joined Darden as an assistant professor in 2009 and has spent more than 16 years building one of the school’s most decorated teaching records. She holds the Landmark Communications Professorship of Business Administration and, until her promotion to vice dean in February 2025, served as senior associate dean for the full-time MBA program. She also serves as academic co-director of the LaCross Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business and holds a courtesy appointment as professor of data science at UVA’s School of Data Science.

Born in the United States to an American mother and an Israeli father, she moved to Israel as a young child and later served as a lieutenant in an ordnance division of the Israel Defense Forces – an experience, she has said, that sharpened her instincts around leadership under uncertainty. Her interest in teaching others surfaced even then, when she worked as an instructor during her mandatory military service.

Grushka-Cockayne earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and management from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, her master’s in operational research from the London School of Economics, and her doctorate in management science and operations from London Business School.

A SCHOOL SHAPED BY AI – AND READY FOR MORE

No aspect of Grushka-Cockayne’s profile is more timely than her work on AI. She co-designed a course on coding with GPT, helped launch Darden’s AI, Data Analytics and Decision Sciences concentration, and has served as a special adviser to the UVA Provost on AI. When Darden went all-in on generative AI in its core strategy course last fall, it was Grushka-Cockayne who framed the moment publicly: “Society is begging for intellectual debates and advanced thinking on what is now made possible by AI and how it should be delivered upon,” she said at the time.

At Darden’s December 2025 conference on ethical AI in business, she struck a note of clear-eyed realism about where the technology actually stands. “Existing AI capabilities are already transforming the world around us,” she said in closing remarks. “We know that – but early AI adoption is uneven. The world is fascinated by what the appropriate use of AI is, and what the long-term implications will be. It’s still an open question.”

That combination of urgency and intellectual humility is precisely what Darden’s search committee said it was looking for. “Across the process, we heard a clear desire for a dean who understands Darden from the inside and also has the imagination to help the school keep evolving,” says Ron Wilcox, NewMarket Corporation Professor of Business Administration and co-chair of the search committee. “Yael brings deep academic credibility, a record of program leadership and a distinctive ability to connect Darden’s strengths in teaching and judgment with the realities of a world shaped by data, technology and uncertainty.”

SUCCEEDING A DEAN WHO BECAME PRESIDENT

Grushka-Cockayne succeeds Scott Beardsley, who was midway through his third term as dean when UVA named him university president in January. “Yael is exactly the kind of leader this moment calls for,” Beardsley says. “She believes deeply in Darden’s student-centered learning model and understands how business education must evolve in a world shaped by data, artificial intelligence and global complexity.”

Mike Lenox, a widely respected authority on innovation and business strategy, served as interim dean during the search. “Yael’s leadership, scholarship and deep experience align well with Darden’s core distinctions, which I have worked to emphasize in my time as interim dean,” Lenox says.

Grushka-Cockayne takes the reins at a moment of considerable institutional momentum. Darden just closed a $632 million capital campaign and consistently ranks among the nation’s top public business schools.

A CAREER BUILT IN THE CLASSROOM

Teaching has always been the through line. Across Darden’s MBA and executive MBA formats, Grushka-Cockayne has led courses in decision analysis, project management and data science – and, more recently, that course in coding with GPT that signals how thoroughly she has brought AI into her own practice as an educator. She has also led global learning experiences in Austria, South Africa, Morocco, Sweden, Israel and Japan, and at the Cannes Film Festival. Her research on forecasting, project planning, decision-making under uncertainty and machine learning in complex organizations has appeared in leading journals including Management Science and Operations Research.

In 2023, she told Poets&Quants that what Darden’s case method does best is cultivate the kind of deliberate, accountable thinking that classrooms can rarely manufacture on command. “To challenge each other, to hold each other accountable, to learn from each other” – that, she said, is the essential transaction in a Darden classroom.

Brie Gertler, UVA’s interim executive vice president and provost, says the appointment reflects the strength of the school’s faculty bench. “Her deep commitment to student-centered learning, her leadership across Darden’s degree programs and her expertise in decision-making, analytics and artificial intelligence make her especially well-suited to lead the school at this important moment,” Gertler says.

DON’T MISS DARDEN’S INTERIM DEAN DOES NOT WANT TO BE ITS PERMANENT LEADER and MEET VIRGINIA DARDEN’S MBA CLASS OF 2027

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