Hanna Renaldi's Blog: Booth Dean Kumar to Become Johns Hopkins Provost

On September 1st of this year, Sunil Kumar will be leaving his post as dean of the Chicago Booth School of Business to become the next provost of Johns Hopkins University. Prior to his position at Booth (dean since 2011), Kumar had spent 14 years on the Stanford GSB faculty.

In a Chicago Tribune article, Kumar says, “While I am saddened to leave this great school that has been my home for the last six years, I am excited to begin this new opportunity in Baltimore.”

A Poets & Quants article on Kumar’s new appointment, states that his departure from Booth is “clearly a surprise” and that Kumar is “leveraging his Booth deanship into a bigger job as a university provost.”

The P&Q article continues to enumerate Kumar’s successes at Booth:

• Kumar raised more than $300 million and increased Booth’s endowment by 50% to $710 million from $435 million.

• Booth saw an 8% increase in faculty during his term, with greater emphasis on behavioral marketing and operations hires.

• He oversaw the redesign and launch of the Chicago Booth Review.

• He “put new life” into the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship after receiving a gift of $35 million from alum Michael Polsky.

In a Johns Hopkins press release, President Ronald J. Daniels says: “Sunil is a proven academic leader with uncompromising standards for excellence, great integrity, and a deep-seated commitment to collaboration. He is a scholar and leader passionate about higher education, committed to values that align with the priorities of the Johns Hopkins Ten by Twenty‘ strategic vision, and well-suited to be a steward and champion of this extraordinary institution.”

Born in Bangalore, India, Kumar holds a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and according to the Chicago Tribune article, is reserved, academic, and a big fan of meatloaf.