Chicago Booth Names Stanford GSB' Madhav Rajan as Next Dean

For the second time Chicago Booth has selected a Stanford GSB professor as its new dean. Madhav Rajan, who chairs the accounting department at Stanford GSB and served as senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2010 to 2016, will be Booth's next dean on July 1st. 

Sunil Kumar, served as Chicago Booth’s dean from 2011 until leaving to become provost of Johns Hopkins University in July 2016, was former senior associate dean at Stanford, where he spent 14 years.

As senior associate dean for academic affairs at Stanford GSB, Rajan led the school’s MBA program, including overseeing admissions, curriculum, the student experience and career management. While at the GSB, Rajan also launched new joint-degree programs with Stanford’s engineering school and led initiatives toward greater integration of the business school within the larger university.

Rajan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras as well as two master’s degrees and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. His research has focused primarily on analyzing management accounting issues through an economics lens, especially as they relate to the choice of internal control and performance systems in firms. Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, which he co-authored, is the leading cost accounting textbook used around the world. He also served as editor of the Accounting Review from 2002 to 2008.

Rajan also served as a visiting professor at Chicago Booth in 2007-8. 

Chicago Booth's ranking and reputation has been steadily rising over the past decade,  threatening Wharton’s previously undisputed place alongside Stanford and Harvard Business School (HBS) as the best business schools in the world. The Economist has ranked Chicago Booth the number one business school for five years running, from 2012 to 2016. And in last year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking, Booth tied with Stanford for second, behind HBS and ahead of Wharton.