UW-Madison narrows search for School of Business dean

The Wisconsin School of Business has narrowed its search for dean, naming three finalists for the position.

Faculty, academic staff, students, and an alumnus and member of Wisconsin’s business community comprised a 16-member search-and-screen committee that made its recommendations to UW–Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and Provost Paul M. DeLuca Jr.

Business professor Donald Hausch served as chair of the committee.

The finalists are:

Anil K. Makhija, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Finance in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Makhija has served as both chair of the finance department and associate dean at Fisher, as well as at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

His research is in the area of corporate finance, with special interest in capital structure, corporate governance and public utilities. He has earned the highest teaching awards at both Ohio State and the University of Pittsburgh.

Makhija earned his doctoral degree in finance from the Wisconsin School of Business.  

François Ortalo-Magné, Robert E. Wangard Professor of Real Estate at the Wisconsin School of Business. Ortalo-Magné chairs the Department of Real Estate and directs the Global Real Estate Master program. His research provides insights into the determinants of housing market fluctuations.

He has received awards in recognition of his research and service to the real estate profession. Before joining the Wisconsin School of Business in 2001, Ortalo-Magné was on the faculty of the economics department at the London School of Economics.

Ortalo-Magné received his doctoral degree in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1995.

Michael Trick, professor of operations research and associate dean for research in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. His research is focused in areas such as scheduling, supply chain management and voting.

Trick has been at Carnegie Mellon’s business school since 1989 and served as president of its Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied Studies in International Management for eight years. He has won teaching awards from Carnegie Mellon.

Trick’s doctoral degree in industrial and systems engineering is from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Campus visits by the finalists are expected to be scheduled soon and will involve meetings with campus administrators and governance groups, as well as presentations followed by question-and-answer sessions open to students, faculty and staff.

The new dean will replace Michael M. Knetter, who last year was appointed president and chief executive officer of the UW Foundation.

The Wisconsin School of Business is recognized worldwide for scholarship and highly ranked educational programs that influence business and public policy and transform the lives of students.

Each year, Wisconsin educates more than 1,500 undergraduate, MBA, Evening MBA, Executive MBA, master of science, master’s in accounting and Ph.D. students. About 3,000 professionals also participate each year in open enrollment and custom executive education programs designed for firms and working professionals. In addition, Wisconsin provides myriad opportunities for nonbusiness students to gain critical business fundamentals and focused training through select courses, certificates and other programs.

In 2007, the Wisconsin School of Business received a first-of-its-kind gift totaling $85 million from a small group of alumni who formed the Wisconsin Naming Partnership to support the school’s mission and preserve the Wisconsin name for at least 20 years. This gift has since grown to more than $95 million.