Prof. Madhav Rajan has been reappointed as dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, effective July 1, President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Ka Yee C. Lee announced.
A renowned scholar in management accounting, Rajan serves as the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting and has served as dean since 2017. Rajan expanded Chicago Booth’s global footprint across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, completing fundraising for the Hong Kong campus and helping open the new London campus. During his tenure, Booth exceeded its fundraising goal for the University of Chicago Campaign: Inquiry and Impact, raising $1.17 billion.
Rajan was instrumental in launching fundraising campaigns in support of research centers and expansion into new fields. He guided the opening of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence and launched the Healthcare Initiative, which uses analytical and humanistic approaches to make a positive impact on the health care industry. As dean, Rajan also led the development of fundraising campaigns for scholarships. Through the Boundless Scholarship Initiative, Booth doubled the amount awarded for MBA scholarships, including opening awards to students in part-time and executive MBA programs.
Under Rajan’s leadership, Booth launched a new undergraduate major in partnership with the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, along with an accelerated, three-year JD/MBA program with the Law School. Booth has also significantly expanded the size of its faculty by attracting and retaining top scholars. Of note, the school has expanded the scale and impact of behavioral sciences, capped by the opening of Mindworks, the first-ever storefront behavioral science lab and interactive discovery center in downtown Chicago.
“Chicago Booth is widely known as a global hub for analytical and innovative business education,” Alivisatos said. “Many of the school’s recent accomplishments are the result of Madhav’s visionary leadership. I am confident that he will continue building upon Booth’s strong foundation and advancing the eminence of the school well into the future.”
As a scholar, Rajan’s primary research interest is the economics-based analysis of management accounting issues, especially as they relate to the choice of internal control and performance systems in firms. He has conducted analytical, empirical and field-based research on the role of information in incentive contracting, the value of nonfinancial and subjective performance measures, and the structural properties and usefulness of common financial ratios.
“I am incredibly proud of all that Chicago Booth has achieved over the past five years, and I’m thrilled to continue our work to ensure Booth remains the best business school in the world,” Rajan said.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart