University of Chicago Names Sunil Kumar as Business Dean to Succeed Snyder

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business chose as its next leader Sunil Kumar, an associate dean at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Kumar, 42, succeeds Edward Snyder, who stepped down in June and will run the Yale School of Management, in New Haven, Connecticut, starting next year. Kumar will begin a five-year term as dean on Jan. 1, the University of Chicago said in a statement today.

Kumar now oversees the master’s of business administration program at Stanford, near Palo Alto, California, where he is also a professor of operations, information and technology. Kumar, who was born in India, received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and has taught at Stanford since 1996.

Kumar “brings the right blend of vision, entrepreneurial energy and academic leadership that will build on the contributions of Chicago Booth at a time of tremendous momentum and achievement,” University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer and Provost Thomas Rosenbaum said in the statement.

Under Snyder, who ran the business school for nine years, Chicago Booth opened the $125 million Harper Center building and received a $300 million gift from David Booth, the chairman and co-chief executive officer of Austin, Texas-based Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc. The school, founded in 1898, is ranked No. 1 among U.S. full-time MBA programs by Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

Harry Davis, a professor of management at the University of Chicago, will serve as interim dean until Kumar begins his term.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oliver Staley in New York at ostaley@bloomberg.net

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