Dezsö J. Horváth has been reappointed to lead the Schulich School of Business for an unprecedented sixth term. Dean Horváth was first appointed in 1988, making his tenure one of the longest at any business school in the world.

Dezsö J. Horváth

“I am pleased to have been appointed to a sixth straight term as Dean of the Schulich School of Business,” said Dezsö Horváth. “Over the years, my colleagues and I have managed to position Schulich as a significant force in management education globally. The entire Schulich community – our faculty, students and staff, our alumni, advisory board members and donors alike – have been instrumental in making this happen. Equally transformative has been the generous and unwavering support provided by Seymour Schulich over many years, which has given us the confidence to expand our global footprint and to compete at the highest level. I look forward to taking on the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities that lie ahead as we strive to enhance our School’s standing as one of the world’s leading centres of management education.”

“One of the world’s longest serving business school deans, Prof Horváth’s next term – starting in July 2013 – will extend his tenure until 2016,” wrote the Financial Times of London on June 29. “Should he complete this period, it would represent a deanship longer than Donald Jacob’s remarkable 26-year tenure (1975-2001) as dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.”

“Prof Horváth’s stewardship has overseen many significant developments at the school, not least its relocation in 2003 to the $104m Seymour Schulich Building – named after the school’s benefactor. Notable among his tenure’s achievements have been the launch of the successful Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA – ranked 11th in the FT EMBA Ranking 2011 – and of the Schulich MBA in India, launched in partnership with the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in 2010.”

Dean Horváth first came to Schulich in 1976 as a visiting professor from the University of Umeå, Sweden, where he had also completed his MBA and PhD in management. He was named an associate professor at York in 1977 and became a full professor in 1981. He currently holds the Tanna H. Schulich Chair in Strategic Management.

In 2004, Horváth was named Dean of the Year by the Academy of International Business (AIB), the world’s leading association of scholars in the field of international business. This award is given in recognition of “outstanding leadership in various aspects of internationalization, including programs, research and curriculum development, and outreach.” And in 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada for his academic leadership and sustained commitment to business education.

On becoming Dean in 1988, Horváth worked with internal and external stakeholders to position Schulich as “Canada’s Global Business School™”. Since then, Schulich has opened satellite centres in Beijing and Shanghai, China; Mumbai, India; Seoul, South Korea; Mexico City, Mexico; São Paulo, Brazil and Moscow, Russia and formed academic exchange agreements with more than 80 leading international business schools in close to 40 countries.

Under Dean Horváth’s leadership, Schulich has risen steadily in global rankings. Schulich’s MBA program is ranked #2 in the world by the Aspen Institute (a Washington, DC-based leadership think tank) in a global survey that identified which schools are doing the best job of preparing future business leaders for the environmental, social and ethical complexities of modern-day business. Schulich’s MBA program is also ranked among the world’s leading schools by The Economist, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek and Expansión (a Time Warner publication based in Mexico City). The Kellogg global network of EMBA partner schools, which includes the Kellogg- Schulich EMBA, is ranked #5 in the world by The Wall Street Journal, and the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA is ranked #1 in Canada by the Financial Times of London.

The reappointment for Dean Horváth’s new three-year term was approved by the executive committee of the Board of Governors of York University and will take effect July 1, 2013.