A Second Year, a Second Century

The school year is underway and I am beginning my second year as dean. The GSB is beginning its second century of business education, and I couldn’t be more excited than to be leading our school at this moment.

My first year was, above all, a year of listening. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to meet so many of you at events all over the world. Your ideas, your energy, and your refreshingly candid feedback clarified my sense of what makes our community so remarkable. We are an intellectually curious bunch, and we are generous with our time, our ideas, and our grace toward one another, which I believe is especially important in this moment.

We believe in the rigor and relevance of a GSB education, and we recognize how this education supports our students and alumni as they achieve excellence. We understand that excellence is something a community produces, not something individuals attain alone.

I believe all of our students must leave the GSB prepared to lead, build, and invest, and we are working hard to ensure we live up to this ambition. While we may think of the GSB as the place where incredible people become brilliant leaders and budding entrepreneurs dream up innovative new ventures, the same ethos runs through the world of finance and investing.

We are building a structure around this foundation, and I am delighted to share that in February 2027, we will launch a Center for Investing. Its mission is simple: to develop future investment leaders and evolve the field through rigorous research, applied learning, and a connected community of students, alumni, faculty, and practitioners.

The demand is unambiguous: 20% of our MBA students arrive with an investing background and more than 30% pursue the industry after they graduate, second only to tech. Anchored by courses like Jack McDonald’s recently updated Investment Management and Entrepreneurial Finance and electives like Private Equity Investing Fundamentals, our robust curriculum of more than 40 courses will cultivate the next generation of investors.

Outside of the classroom, the Center will engage and strengthen our investing community by connecting alumni with one another, with students, and, of course, with our faculty, whose research illuminates and catalyzes the industry. Our Investor Summit, which will be held on February 27, serves as our marquee convening, showcasing our leadership and innovation in the field while bringing together leading thinkers and practitioners to discuss challenges and opportunities.

Much of this issue is dedicated to AI. I have watched our community move through three rooms as AI changes the world around us. The first was a room of anxiety, where the question was what AI would do to us. The second was a room of agency, where students, faculty, and staff put the tools to work. The third room, the one we occupy now, is the most interesting. The questions we’re encountering here are bigger: not only questions about what AI can do, but questions about what it should do. What becomes of work? What guardrails are needed? And, perhaps most importantly, how do humans flourish in this era? Those are questions of judgment, reason, and discernment, which is precisely what a GSB education develops.

One more thing I learned this year. Our Centennial gatherings were joyful, but they confirmed something I had long suspected: The fabric of this community frayed during the pandemic years and has not been fully mended. Rebuilding this fabric is the work I care most about in my second year, and it is the work I cannot do alone. Mentor a student. Hire one. Engage a student as an intern. Return a call. Come back for the lifelong learning we are creating for you. Connect with me if you have an idea we might explore together.

We have always been a community, and I am so excited to lay the foundation of our next century with you.