Professor Judy Olian
Dean, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Judy D. Olian is a member of the US Studies Centre Council of Advisors.
Professor Olian is the eighth dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management and is the John E. Anderson Chair in Management. She began her appointment on January 1, 2006 after serving five and a half years as dean and professor of management at the Smeal College of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University.
Under her leadership, UCLA Anderson is executing a comprehensive strategic plan to expand the school's global presence and partnerships and is engaged in an aggressive growth campaign, which will result in hiring a record number of faculty from the world's best research institutions. The school is developing a global foot print with a series of targeted global partnerships, especially in China, India and Mexico. Since arriving at UCLA Anderson, the School celebrated the launch of the Laurence and Lori Fink Center for Finance and Investments, the newest of the School's six research centers. Dean Olian is expanding the School's Board of Visitors, attracting executives who bring diverse functional and global perspectives. The school is also in a significant campaign to assure its financial footing as one of only two public schools of management included routinely among the ranks of the leading schools of management in the world.
Olian served as the chairman of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the premier business accrediting and management thought leadership organization in the world. She also has chaired two industry-wide AACSB commissions addressing the future of management education, and the looming crisis of shortages in business Ph.D. graduates.
Olian has been widely published in journals on human resource management and business alignment of management systems, wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column and hosted a monthly television show on current topics in business. She is a sought-after speaker and has consulted for major corporations. Olian's honors include the American Council on Education Fellowship and the Maryland Association for Higher Education Award for Innovation.
As dean of UCLA Anderson, Judy Olian leads a school that annually provides management education to more than 1,700 students enrolled in MBA, Executive MBA, Fully-Employed MBA and doctoral programs, and to more than 2,000 professional managers through executive education programs. The school has several widely recognized research centers and more than 35,000 alumni worldwide.
Prior to her tenure at Smeal, she served as acting dean, senior associate dean and professor of management and organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
Born and raised in Australia, she holds a B.S. degree in Psychology from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Relations from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
