Come July 1st, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the business school at Penn, will have a new dean.
Erika James, currently the dean of Emory's business school, will become the new dean of the Wharton School on July 1, according to a press release issued by Penn.
She holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges, in California. In addition to her roles at Emory and University of Virginia Darden School of Business, she has served as an assistant professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business and a visiting professor at Harvard Business School.
“This is an exciting time to be in business education,” James said in the press release. “The scope and platform of the Wharton School provide an opportunity to create a far-reaching impact for students, scholars, and the business community.”
In 2014, James assumed her deanship at Goizueta, becoming the first Black woman to head a top-25 United States business school.
By the end of her first term at Goizueta, James grew the business school faculty by 25%. She also led a redesign of the undergraduate business curriculum by integrating immersive learning, technology, and the Emory College’s liberal arts curriculum.
Before serving as the Goizueta dean, James was the senior associate dean for executive education at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
She has also served as a visiting professor at Harvard Business School and assistant professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business.
In 2019, the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, a leading graduate business school organization with a focus on diversity, awarded James the inaugural Earl Hill Jr. Faculty Achievement and Diversity Award for her “outstanding academic and professional leadership on campus and to the community beyond the boundaries of the university.”
“Erika has consistently and constructively drawn upon her own scholarship in the areas of leadership development, organizational behavior, gender, and racial diversity, and crisis leadership, applying her own insights into human behavior to foster a work culture that allows people to thrive personally and professionally,” Provost Wendell Pritchett said in the University of Pennsylvania press release.
