Tag: Dean



Before the food truck phenomenon, there were food carts. You can still see them on many corners in New York City. Now, try to imagine Dean Mark Taylor, as a teenager, outside a stadium in England hawking hot dogs to hungry football fans. We realize it may not be the most glamorous first job (few are), but Dean Taylor tells Poets & Quants that the experience probably inspired his career in business and finance. Here’s the dean’s description of his first foray into commerce:

Mark P. Taylor, Dean of Olin Business School.
James Byard / WUSTL Photos

“During my teenage years in England, I used to sell hot dogs on the weekend from a street cart outside pubs and outside the local stadium during soccer matches. I worked on a commission of twenty percent of the gross takings, but I figured out that the overall margin was probably two or three times that. I was always among the top sellers, so I tried to negotiate a pay raise with my employer but they did not want to pay me more because they would have had to pay all of the other hot dog sellers more. Quite rightly, they pointed out that while I was selling more on average, I was getting twenty percent of that extra amount, so I was already being rewarded for exceptional performance.

“Nevertheless, perhaps a little arrogantly, I accepted a job with higher commission at a new, rival company. However, the new market entrant did not have the top locations for their carts and overall sales were lower, leading to a lower sales commission. I was forced to go back to my original employer and ask for my old job back. However, when I did, I suggested that I could train some of the other sales people and help with accounting, to save the owner time at the end of a shift. My business takeaways from this experience were numerous; in fact, it probably pushed me into a career in business and finance.”

Link to P&Q’s article on Deans’ First Jobs here.

Photo: Sculpture by Seward Johnson, “Relish, too?” Celebrating the Familiar series




As part of their Best & Brightest nomination process, Poets & Quants asked students: “If you were a dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience?”

Olin’s Markey Culver advocates for the minority of women in most business schools where most of the case studies focus on companies managed by men when she said she would “push for more cases and discussions that address international and female-focused topics.”

Other students called for more international experience.  “A Georgia Tech grad would tackle the issue by purchasing an airline ticket voucher, good for one international trip, for every student.”

What would you do if you were Dean for a Day?

Link to Poets & Quants story.




Provost Holden Thorp has appointed a nine-member committee to identify candidates for the position of dean of the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Mahendra R. Gupta, dean and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management at Olin Business School, announced this month that he will conclude his deanship at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2016.

Gupta, who has served as dean since 2005 and on the Olin faculty since 1990, will remain at Olin as a member of the accounting faculty and continue his research.

Ralph S. Quatrano, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, will chair the Olin School dean search.

Thorp and the committee will work to have a new dean in place by July 1, 2016.

In addition to Quatrano, the committee members, who are all affiliated with Olin, are:

  • Nicholas S. Argyres, the Vernon W. and Marion K. Piper Professor of Strategy;
  • Michelle M. Duguid, associate professor of organizational behavior;
  • Daniel Henry, first-year student in the MBA program;
  • Clifford Holekamp (MBA ’01), senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and director of the Entrepreneurship Platform;
  • Jessica J. Landzberg, junior in the Olin School;
  • Robyn LeBoeuf, associate professor of marketing;
  • James O’Donnell (BSBA ’74, MBA ’74), member of the university Board of Trustees and of Olin’s National Council; and
  • Anjan Thakor, the John E. Simon Professor of Finance and director of doctoral programs and the Wells Fargo Advisors Center for Finance and Accounting Research.

–  Story from the WUSTL Newsroom