Robert Sullivan

Sullivan has spent most of his academic career researching operations management, which has led to his appointment as dean of four top-tier business schools. As the founding dean of UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, where he served from 2003 to 2019, he successfully launched an MBA program for full-time students and working professionals. Under his leadership, the Rady School grew to become a nationally ranked MBA program with a top-tier faculty, a robust student cohort, and dedicated alumni who have raised over $2 billion in startup capital since 2006. Before joining UC San Diego in 2003, he served as dean at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and director of the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. From 1991 to 1995, he was dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA), now known as the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Sullivan started his academic career in 1968 as a lecturer in production management while in the U.S. Peace Corps in Ethiopia. He has also served as a lecturer at Pennsylvania State University and as a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He holds a doctorate in operations management from Pennsylvania State University, an MBA from Cornell University, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Boston College.

Beyond his academic career, Sullivan is a coveted director that has served on several public boards as an investor-relations liaison. He was the lead director for Cubic Corp. and GenWay in San Diego and chairman of the board of Stewart and Stevenson Inc. in Houston, Texas. Sullivan has also served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations. He is currently the director of the compensation committee at American Assets Trust Inc. (AAT) and the vice president of the board of trustees for the Alliance on Business Education and Scholarship for Tomorrow (ABEST21) in Tokyo, Japan. Previously, he served on the boards of BIOCOM and CONNECT, and is the former board chair of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the primary global accreditation organization for business schools.