Another Major Business School Announces Its First Woman Dean
Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg / Getty Images- The Stanford Graduate School of Business has a new dean: Sarah A. Soule, the Morgridge professor of organizational behavior.
- Soule is the first woman to lead Stanford GSB.
- Soule will join a number of other women leading top business schools.
- A growing number of MBA programs have achieved gender parity in recent years.
The Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB) will join the growing number of top business schools led by women.
Stanford in January announced that Sarah A. Soule, the Morgridge professor of organizational behavior, will become the first woman to lead the GSB. Soule will start in the role in June.
In the announcement, Soule emphasized the school’s longtime focus on leadership and personal development and said that expertise remains relevant even amid rapidly changing technology.
“There is and will continue to be a central role, even in an age of AI (artificial intelligence), for the individual, transformational experience we offer at the GSB in creating leaders,” she said.
Soule has been a faculty member at Sanford since 2008 and brings a lengthy leadership resume to her new role.
She was the school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2016-2023 and has been the Sara Miller McCune director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences since 2023.
Soule will take over from Professor Peter DeMarzo, who has been serving as interim dean since Jonathan Levin became Stanford’s president in 2024.
“In addition to being a proven leader and a great researcher, Sarah brings an authentic, principled, and personable style,” DeMarzo said. “She connects well with students, faculty, staff, alumni — pretty much everyone. The GSB is in excellent hands.”
More Women Are Leading Business Schools
Soule joins several other women who lead major business schools across the country.
Last year’s survey of deans by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business found that the number of women deans rose to 30% in 2023-2024, up from 26% in 2020-2021, BestColleges previously reported.
Sharon Matusik, dean of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, said in an emailed statement at the time that the growing number of women deans at business schools was “encouraging.”
“This not only provides encouragement for women faculty who aspire to academic leadership roles in the future, but it also provides examples for young women who may be considering a business education of the different ways that women can use a business education to make an impact in the world,” Matusik said in the statement.
“My hope is that these increases inspire even more women to pursue a business education at all levels — undergraduate, master’s level, and Ph.D.”
Debora Jackson, the dean of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Business School, said in an emailed statement at the time that “changing times and changing demands have paved the way for a different kind of leadership.”
Soule joins Francesca Cornelli of the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and Erika James of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as women leading elite magic or magnificent seven (M7) business schools.
MBA Programs Also Achieving Gender Parity
The rising number of women leading business schools also coincides with greater representation within master of business administration (MBA) programs.
A record eight Forté Foundation member business schools reached gender parity in fall 2024, the foundation announced in a report. That was an increase from five in 2023, three in 2022, and one in 2020.
Roughly 42% of full-time enrolled MBA candidates were women in 2024, the same percentage as in 2023.
That figure has generally climbed by a little less than a percentage point yearly over the past decade.
The record number of foundation members hitting gender parity in 2024 came amid a global rise in MBA applications and enrollments. Forté CEO Elissa Sangster said that overall increase helped to boost gender parity.
“A rising tide lifts all boats, and the same is true for women’s MBA enrollment this year,” Sangster said in a statement.
“Historically, in an economy with slower hiring, more people head back to school to earn an MBA. Women are typically more risk averse than men about pursuing an MBA — in part because they earn less and have more undergrad student loan debt as a result.”
The eight Forté Foundation schools achieving gender parity in 2024 by the percentage of women enrolled were:
- The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School — 59%
- The George Washington University School of Business, long a leader in gender representation — 58%
- EDHEC Business School, an international business school based in France — 58%
- The Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School — 53%
- The Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business — 53%
- The University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management — 53%
- The Duke University Fuqua School of Business — 51%
- The Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management — 50%