Singapore, 9 September 2014 (Tuesday) – The Singapore Management University (SMU) has appointed Professor Gerard George from the Imperial College London as Dean of the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business from 1 January 2015 for a five-year term.
A Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Professor Gerard George is currently Deputy Dean of Imperial College Business School and the Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre. The Centre facilitates Imperial College London's strategic commitments in India for joint research initiatives and educational programmes in innovation and entrepreneurship. He also serves as the International Dean of BML Munjal University, an innovative new university mentored by Imperial and located near New Delhi.
Professor George is Editor of the Academy of Management Journal, the flagship empirical journal in the field of management. He is also the Academic Director of Imperial College’s Elite Programme sponsored by the London Stock Exchange and delivered in partnership with Imperial, which develops and supports ambitious private companies through their next stage of growth.
Professor George has extensive experience partnering with the business and social communities. He was awarded a prestigious Professorial Fellowship (2011-2014) from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council to work on resource-constrained or inclusive innovation. His work investigates business models, organisational design, and its implications for innovation and entrepreneurship. He is also co-investigator in a five-year Energy for Development collaborative project with Southampton University that studies the effects of rural electrification, community development and social enterprise. As an Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) Innovation Fellow (2007 - 2009), he studied technology commercialisation, entrepreneurship and growth of young firms.
Commenting on his big move to Asia and to SMU, Dean-designate of SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Professor Gerard George said “this is a terrific opportunity to position the business school as a global leader. SMU’s strength is its innovative approach to education, a strong faculty, and its geographic primacy as an Asian hub. I see my role as increasing LKCSB’s global visibility, strengthening linkages with industry, government and the region, and encouraging an intellectual climate that is vibrant and relevant to the challenges faced by business and society today. We can deliver on this promise only by remaining entrepreneurial and nimble in an increasingly crowded market, that’s where I see my skills as creating the most value.”
An award-winning teacher and researcher, Professor George has written two books on entrepreneurship and published several articles in leading scholarly journals. Before joining Imperial College London, Professor George held tenured positions at the London Business School, where he served as Faculty Director of the Institute of Technology, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directed the Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship Program.
On the appointment, SMU President, Professor Arnoud De Meyer, said, “Having held several leadership positions at Imperial College London and London Business School, Professor Gerard George has a proven track record as a strong and collaborative strategic leader. He has a deep understanding of SMU’s vision and also shares our mission of delivering a broad-based and multi-disciplinary business education that emphasises ethics and social responsibility. Professor George also has wide experiences working in partnership with the corporate and social communities. He is the right person to partner with SMU faculty, students, staff and alumni, to strengthen LKCSB’s engagement with our stakeholders, and contribute his expertise, as we develop SMU into a leading Asian City University.”
SMU Provost and Deputy President (Academic Affairs), Professor Rajendra K Srivastava, said, “Professor George brings with him strong expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship, qualities which we want to continue to strengthen in our business students – both undergraduates and postgraduates. Being SMU’s founding School, Lee Kong Chian School of Business has made many significant achievements in the last 14 years, including being one of the youngest business schools to achieve both the AACSB and EQUIS (5-year) accreditations. I am confident that Professor George will fulfill his mission as the new Dean, and take Singapore’s largest business school to even greater heights.”
In expressing his appreciation to Professor Howard Thomas, Professor De Meyer said, “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Thomas for his very effective leadership of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business in the last five years. He has laid a firm foundation upon which the School’s new leadership can build upon. We are fortunate that beyond 2014 Howard Thomas will be with us as a Distinguished Professor of Strategic Management and Management Education, and will support us in many of our growing activities in Singapore and the region.”