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Tag: Darden School of Business

U.Va. Darden School dean reappointed to third term

Scott C. Beardsley, dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, has been reappointed to his third term as dean, which starts Aug. 1, 2025, and extends through August 2029, U.Va. announced Wednesday.

Named dean in 2015, Beardsley is now the university’s longest serving current dean and has raised more than $610 million for the school over the past decade, as well as opening a satellite campus in Arlington County; hiring more than 60 faculty members; hitting application and enrollment records among women, military veterans, underrepresented minorities, international and first-generation students; and launching the $150 million student housing project on the business school’s grounds. During his tenure, Darden also has been named the top public MBA program in Bloomberg Businessweek (2022-24) and Poets & Quants (2023 and 2024). Beardsley was named U.Va.’s Dean of the Year in 2020.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to work with the incredible community of the Darden School of Business in pursuing our mission to improve the world by developing responsible leaders, and to my wife Claire, and family who have been critical to any success I’ve had,” Beardsley said in a statement. “I am invigorated to continue pursuing progress with all of our stakeholders to ensure that Darden cements its position as one of the best places to learn, teach, research and work in higher education. In a world in which responsible leadership remains at a premium, Darden can be a beacon of hope as we inspire and develop the leaders of today and the future.”

Beardsley added that his focus over the next five years will be on marking the Darden School’s 75th anniversary in 2030, as well as increasing scholarship funding and accessibility, and shepherding the school’s facilities master plan to completion.

Also the Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business, Beardsley holds a degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. Beardsley worked for McKinsey & Co. for 26 years in New York City and in Brussels, Belgium. As of this year, he is finishing a part-time master’s in practical ethics at the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College.

 

U.Va. receives $5M donation for business ethics professorship

The former president and CEO of Canadian Tire Corp. and his wife have committed $5 million to establish a University of Virginia Darden School of Business professorship focused on business ethics.

U.Va. President Jim Ryan announced the donation by Stephen and Phyllis Bachand to the Darden School Foundation on Dec. 19, 2023. The university will match the gift with $5 million from its Bicentennial Professorship Fund to reach the endowment required for a university professorship.

Stephen Bachand graduated from U.Va.’s Darden School of Business with an MBA in 1963. That year, according to a 1999 article in The Washington Post, he started working at Maryland-based home improvement chain Hechinger as an executive assistant to John Hechinger, who became the company’s president in 1986. After more than 20 years overseeing back-office operations, Bachand was given charge of store operations at Hechinger.

He served as president and CEO of Toronto-based hardware retailer Canadian Tire Corp. from 1993 to 2000, according to Bloomberg. In 1999, the Post credited Bachand with turning around the company, which reported double-digit profit growth in 1998 after five years of declining growth. The company now has more than 1,700 retail locations.

“U.Va.’s Darden School of Business has had a transformative impact on me and my career,” Bachand said in a statement. “To this day, I remain inspired by the school’s mission to develop responsible leaders and foster ethical practice in business. … I see the university professorship as a powerful vehicle to cultivate an enduring legacy of ethical thinking and practice, impacting not just individuals, but generations of business leaders and organizations worldwide.”

U.Va.’s president and provost will appoint the holder of the Stephen E. Bachand University Professorship. University professorships are awarded to distinguished professors whose scholarship exceeds the boundaries of a particular school or is interdisciplinary, according to a U.Va. news release.

“I’m deeply grateful to Stephen and Phyllis Bachand for their generous investment in a university professorship in business ethics,” Ryan said in a statement. “Their gift will help foster vibrant teaching, learning and research in the field, which will help strengthen ethical business practices in organizations beyond [U.Va.’s] Grounds.”

Bachand has previously donated to U.Va. and Darden, making his first gift to Darden in 1972. As of October 2022, the Bachands had given between $1 million and $2.4 million total to the business school, with his primary focus being first-generation students, of which he was one.

U.Va. biz school receives $50M donation from alum

A University of Virginia Darden School of Business alumnus and his wife, also a U.Va. graduate, have added $50 million to an earlier gift of $44 million for the business school, which adds up to the largest donation in Darden’s 68-year history.

Philanthropists David and Kathleen LaCross made a $44 million donation in October 2022, at the time the school’s third largest donation, and that gift spurred $6 million in matching funds from the university. With last week’s $50 million addition, the gift is more than $107 million with matching funds from the university and is now the largest in the school’s 68 years, placing the LaCross family among the top five contributors to U.Va.’s $5 billion “Honor the Future” capital campaign, U.Va. said in a news release.

David LaCross, who founded a small California tech company that he sold in 1997, earned his MBA from Darden in 1978, and his wife, Kathleen LaCross, graduated in 1976 from U.Va.’s College of Arts and Sciences. Their gift to Darden will help pay for new artificial intelligence technology programming and a residential college at Darden. According to U.Va., the 2022 gift launched the Artificial Intelligence Initiative at Darden, and with the $50 million addition, the work will expand to the school’s Institute for Business in Society and the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics.

“Dave and Kathy LaCross have once again demonstrated extraordinary generosity and vision with their investments and confidence in Darden and in U.Va.,” U.Va. President James Ryan said in a statement. “They have my deepest admiration and gratitude.”

LaCross worked for 10 years at Bank of America and then founded Berkeley, California-based financial tech company Risk Management Technologies, which he sold in 1997 to Fair, Isaac and Co., now known as FICO. In 2014, he and his son, Michael, cofounded Morgan Territory Brewing, a craft beer brewer in California’s Central Valley.

The gift will fund research and instruction in AI, including its ethical implications for management, as well as challenges and opportunities it presents for business and society. The school launched an initiative in artificial intelligence with the couple’s 2022 gift and this latest donation comes as it kicks off “Faculty Forward,” the second milestone under the school’s “Powered by Purpose” campaign, which raised its $400 million goal two years before it concludes in 2025. The second milestone included a priority for Darden and U.Va. to become leaders in research, teaching and deployment of AI and other innovative technologies in business.

“Students need to be exposed to AI in meaningful ways, and there is no business school better positioned to teach managers how to work with AI in ethical and responsible ways than Darden,” LaCross said during the gift’s announcement, which followed a dedication of the newly-named LaCross Botanical Gardens behind The Forum Hotel, a Kimpton property that opened in April on Darden’s grounds.

U.Va. Darden takes 9th in Bloomberg MBA program ranking

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business tied for No. 9 out of 84 U.S. schools in the 2021-2022 Bloomberg Businessweek Best B-Schools MBA list, released this week.

The Darden School dropped from the No. 4 slot that it earned in 2019 and tied with The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania this year. Its students average GMAT score is 710, and its average class size is 338.

Bloomberg used data from schools, surveys of students who graduated from Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2021, alumni who graduated from Oct. 1, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2015, and employers that recruited MBA graduates for full-time positions in 2019 and 2020.

The U.Va. school received an overall score of 81.3 out of 100. In the compensation metric, Darden received an 89.9, putting the school in the 11th slot. The index measures pay right after graduation, what alumni are earning, percentage of students employed three months after graduation, percentage of class receiving a signing bonus and size of bonuses. It is the highest weighted category at 36.5%.

In the learning category, the Darden School ranked No. 13. This category focuses on whether the curriculum is applicable to real-world business situations; the degree of emphasis on innovation, problem-solving and strategic thinking; the level of support from instructors; class size; and collaboration.

The Darden School placed 14th in networking, which examines the quality of networks being built by classmates, students’ interactions with alumni, career-services office successes, quality and breadth of alumni-to-alumni interactions, and the school’s halo, or brand power, from recruiters’ viewpoints.

In entrepreneurship, the Darden School ranked No. 31. Alumni rated the quality of training that they received to start a small business or startup, and recruiters ranked schools according to graduates’ entrepreneurial skills.

This is the first year that Bloomberg Businessweek has included a diversity index. Race and ethnicity counted for 50% of the diversity score, and gender the other half. The Darden School ranked No. 54 for diversity. Its student population is 62% men and 38% women. The body is 82% white, 8% Asian, 5% Black and 6% Hispanic. The school has 38 nationalities represented total. Seventy-two percent of its students are from the U.S., 11% from India, 6% from China, 2% from Canada and 1% from South Korea.

Forty-one percent of graduates are hired in the consulting industry, 20.5% in technology and 19.1% in the financial sector.

The top 10 MBA programs on the list are:

  1. Stanford Graduate School of Business
  2. Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business
  3. Harvard Business School
  4. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business
  5. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management
  6. Columbia Business School
  7. University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business
  8. MIT Sloan School of Management
  9. Tie: U.Va. Darden School of Business, The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania
  10. New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business

U.Va. opens Northern Virginia campus

The University of Virginia announced Wednesday it has opened a campus in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, with plans to expand to other sites in the region. The campus in Northern Virginia will be called UVA|NOVA.

“UVA|NOVA will be the center point of our efforts to better serve the commonwealth by bringing new academic programming and research to Northern Virginia,” U.Va. President Jim Ryan said in a statement. “We hope to help serve those in Northern Virginia who are looking to gain additional skills that will help further their careers.”

Gregory Fairchild is serving as the inaugural dean and CEO of UVA|NOVA. He is currently the Isidore Horween Research Professor of Business Administration at U.Va.’s Darden School of Business.

“Northern Virginia is an important economic, technological and academic hub for our commonwealth and our country,” Fairchild said in a statement. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to build on the strong commitment the university has made in the region and to work with our partners to expand our academic offerings, research operations and the physical spaces from which we will launch that important work.”

UVA|NOVA will offer expanded courses “in the near term” in several schools, including the schools of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Education and Human Development, Continuing and Professional Studies and Data Science, as well as in the Darden School of Business. The university will also offer a part-time MBA program in the Darden School in fall 2022.

U.Va. also intends for the new campus to be a “Grounds away from Grounds” for local students, alumni and community members to meet.

U.Va. Darden’s Beardsley recognized as ‘Dean of the Year’ by Poets & Quants

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business announced Monday that Dean Scott Beardsley was named “Dean of the Year” by Poets & Quants, an online publication and forum dedicated to business schools.

Poets & Quants recognized Beardsley’s flexible approach to the application process during the pandemic, as well as the school’s teaching excellence and its expansion beyond Charlottesville. He is the second dean from U.Va.’s Darden School of Business to receive this honor, with Dean Emeritus Bob Bruner recognized in 2011. 

“Unlike most deans, Scott has done a deep comprehensive McKinsey study of Darden,” Michael Woodfolk, president of the Darden School Foundation and the school’s chief fundraiser, said in a statement. “As part of that study, he has looked at what are the strong arteries that flow to the heart of the school. One of those arteries is the student experience, and he has been determined to make sure it remains the best there is.”

Beardsley is the 10th person to be honored by Poets & Quants, with previous winners including leaders from the Harvard Business School, the Yale School of Management, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and IE Business School in Spain.

The ninth Darden dean, Beardsley began his tenure at the beginning of the 2015-2016 academic year and was recently appointed to a second five-year term. He is also the school’s Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration. He holds a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining U.Va., he worked for 26 years at New York-based global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co, most recently serving as senior partner and an elected member of McKinsey’s global board of directors.

 

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U.Va. launches Sands Institute for Lifelong Learning

Using its largest-ever gift — a $68 million donation last year from Frank M. Sands Sr., founder of Sands Investment Group Inc. — the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business announced Friday it has launched the Marjorie R. and Frank M. Sands Sr. Institute for Lifelong Learning.

The Sands Institute for Lifelong Learning will provide degree and non-degree programs for working professionals. The gift also established the Sands Professorship Fund in support of 12 new faculty chair positions at the business school. On Friday, the institute announced its first five professorships.

“It’s thrilling to see the early impact of Frank Sands’ gift beginning to take shape,” Ashley Williams, CEO and CLO of Darden executive education, lifelong learning and non-degree programs, and leader of the Sands Institute, said in a statement. “We are excited to continue to unleash innovation in this space, making Darden an indispensable lifelong learning partner for professionals and organizations across the globe.”

The professors include:

  • Toni Irving — teaches and consults about leadership, nonprofit management and organizational behavior, cross-sector partnerships, social impact, corporate responsibility and business ethics
  • Lynn Isabella — teaches courses in organizational behavior, leadership and change and team interaction across Darden programs
  • Paul Simko — teaches courses in accounting and financial statement analysis and previously led the Executive MBA program at Darden
  • Scott Snell — teaches courses in strategic management, consults senior executives and is the former senior associate dean for executive education at Darden 
  • Kimberly Whitler — teaches marketing strategy, marketing performance and brand management
(From left) Professors Toni Irving, Lynn Isabella, Paul Simko, Scott Snell and Kimberly Whitler. Photo courtesy U.Va.
(From left) Professors Toni Irving, Lynn Isabella, Paul Simko, Scott Snell and Kimberly Whitler. Photo courtesy U.Va.

“We’re thrilled to bestow endowed Sands professorships on these five world-class professors,” Darden Dean Scott Beardsley said in a statement. “They are leaders in and out of the classroom and further Frank Sands’ goal of bolstering excellence and innovation in teaching at the Darden School. We look forward to announcing several other new professorships in the year to come to support degree program offerings for the working professional.”

The Sands’ gift will also go toward developing more online courses amid the pandemic, constructing the U.Va Inn at Darden and Conference Center for Lifelong Learning (to include 199 hotel rooms, 12,000 square feet of conference space and a 6,500-square-foot ballroom) and new degree offerings, including an executive MBA program and a master’s degree in business analytics.

“In these unprecedented times, the need to accelerate lifelong learning to support the leaders of tomorrow to successfully lead in times of uncertainty and change has been further cemented,” Williams said in a statement.

 

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Focused Ultrasound Foundation names board members

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation, based in Charlottesville, announced Thursday it has named two Virginia executives to its board of directors: Scott C. Beardsley, University of Virginia Darden School of Business dean, and Mike Lincoln, Cooley LLP global business department chair.

Scott Beardsley. Photo courtesy The Focused Ultrasound Foundation
Scott Beardsley. Photo courtesy The Focused Ultrasound Foundation

Beardsley became the Darden School’s dean in 2015 and is also the Charles C. Abbott professor of business administration. He teaches graduate school classes in strategy, leadership, global business and general management. In 2019, he was reappointed to another term as dean through 2025. Before Darden, he held leadership roles at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Tufts University, his master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management and his doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mike Lincoln. Photo courtesy The Focused Ultrasound Foundation
Mike Lincoln. Photo courtesy The Focused Ultrasound Foundation

Lincoln founded international law firm Cooley’s first East Coast office in 1999 and has served in leadership roles there ever since. He is also an adjunct professor at U.Va.’s School of Law and teaches emerging growth companies and venture capital. He also serves on the boards and councils of Mindshare, the Shenandoah National Park Foundation, the Federal City Council, the Medical Care for Children Partnership Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association and the U.Va. School of Law Alumni Council.

Lincoln earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Southeast Missouri State University and his juris doctorate from U.Va. School of Law.

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation was founded in 2006 and works to accelerate development of focused ultrasound, a noninvasive therapeutic technology that is being explored as a treatment for numerous medical conditions, including neurological disorders.

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