Announcing the Next Dean of Goizueta Business School

Dear Emory Community,

It is with great excitement that I announce the new dean of Goizueta Business School, Gareth James. A statistician by training, Gareth currently serves the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business as deputy dean, E. Morgan Stanley Chair in Business Administration, and professor of data sciences and operations. Gareth will take up the deanship July 1, 2022. 

Gareth has been an active leader in his time at the Marshall School of Business. Most recently, he has served as interim dean (2019-2020), during which he led the school’s COVID-19 response, and deputy dean (2020-2022), a position created to retain him at school-level leadership; he has also served as vice dean of faculty. Chosen from an extraordinarily strong pool of candidates, Gareth stood out from the beginning with his leadership experience; his scholarship; his caring for faculty, staff, and students; his deep understanding of building innovative educational programs; his interest in connecting to Atlanta’s thriving business community; his innate sense of the importance of engaging with Goizueta alumni; his affable style and his sense of humor. We are thrilled to have an experienced leader and scholar of Gareth’s caliber joining us to advance the teaching and research missions of Goizueta Business School. He has an excellent grasp of our strengths, understands our desires and ambitions for the school, and has plans to realize them.

As an active scholar, Gareth has authored numerous journal and discussion articles, books, conference proceedings, and book chapters. In particular, he has published extensively in the areas of functional data analysis and high dimensional statistics. His work has been cited approximately 20,000 times. In fact, just in the period since COVID hit he has published six top-tier journal articles along with the second edition of his highly successful co-authored textbook, An Introduction to Statistical Learning. Gareth has acted as the PI or co-PI on several National Science Foundation research grants and has served as an associate editor for five top research journals. He has won two Dean’s Research Awards, and is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Gareth is also a superb teacher and mentor. In addition to the Evan C. Thompson Faculty Teaching and Learning Innovation award, he has won Marshall’s Golden Apple for best instructor in the full time MBA program three times. He has also been awarded Marshall and USC’s highest honors for mentoring junior colleagues and graduate students, including the Dean’s Ph.D. Advising, USC Mellon, Evan C. Thompson and Provost’s Mentoring awards.

Gareth is keen to begin his work at Goizueta, noting, “Emory and Goizueta have impressive ambitions to become even stronger institutions. I’m looking forward to working with President Fenves, Provost Bellamkonda, and our faculty, staff, and students to transform that ambition into a reality. I’m also excited to be at a school whose very name represents an important legacy for both Emory and the Atlanta region.” 

Gareth graduated with a PhD in statistics from Stanford University in 1998 after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship in 1994. He holds bachelor of science and bachelor of commerce degrees from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

It is with great esteem that I acknowledge the many contributions of Interim Dean Karen Sedatole to Goizueta Business School and Emory University. Her many accomplishments include the launch of The Roberto C. Goizueta Business & Society Institute and The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Under her leadership, Goizueta also launched The Roberto C. Goizueta Global Classrooms, elevating classroom experience and global reach through innovative technology; the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund, a million-dollar student-run venture capital fund focused exclusively on Black, LatinX, and Native American founders; the John R. Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition, a student-run competition that examines how companies can address racial injustice within their organizations and in society; the master of analytical finance degree, led by Wall Street professionals, which offers hands-on experiences to support next-generation careers in sales and trading, investment management, FinTech, and investment banking; and the online executive MBA, a new format of Goizueta’s EMBA program. Karen has also led Goizueta through COVID-19 with great care and compassion, and I know these qualities will ensure a smooth transition to Dean-elect James’s tenure.

I also want to acknowledge the deep care with which the Search Advisory Committee, led by Dean Vikas P. Sukhatme of the School of Medicine, approached their task. Their commitment to excellence and great love of Emory were evident in every part of the search process.

Please join me in welcoming Gareth to the Emory community. 

Warmly,

Ravi V. Bellamkonda
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.