Professor Judy Olian

Judy D. Olian is a member of the US Studies Centre's Council of Advisors.

Olian is the eighth dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management and John E. Anderson Chair in Management. She began her appointment in January 2006, after serving more than five years as Dean and Professor of Management at the Smeal College of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University, and Professor and Senior Associate Dean at the Smith School at the University of Maryland.

Under her leadership, UCLA Anderson has hired a record number of faculty, launched new global degree and certificate programs, and initiated and developed targeted partnerships in Asia and Latin America. Recently, UCLA Anderson became the first self‐supporting school at the University of California.

Under her leadership the School has raised almost $325M to support innovative programming and management thought leadership, and to advance UCLA Anderson as one of the leading schools of management in the world.

Olian leads a school that annually provides management education to almost 2,000 students in MBA, Masters and doctoral programs, and to more than 2,000 professionals through executive education programs. The school has several widely recognized research centers and a global alumni network of more than 35,000 graduates.

The School’s Board of Visitors has expanded, attracting many prominent business leaders who represent diverse functional and global perspectives. Olian served as the 2008 chairman of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the premier business accrediting and management thought leadership organization in the world.Widely published in journals on human resource management, top management team composition, and the business alignment of management systems, Olian 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. She serves on the advisory boards of Catalyst; the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney; the Westwood Technology Transfer; Ares Management; and United Therapeutics.

Born and raised in Australia, Olian 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.