Vishal Gaur, the Emerson Professor of Manufacturing Management and professor of operations, technology and information management, has been named the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business Dean Andrew Karolyi announced May 5.

Gaur, who will begin his role as dean July 1, will serve as a member of Karolyi’s College Leadership Team.

Credit: Cornell University

“Vishal has demonstrated his outstanding commitment to the Johnson School time and again, as a distinguished scholar, as an award-winning educator and especially as an effective leader,” Karolyi said. “I couldn’t be more pleased that he’ll lead the school into its next phase.”

Founded in 1946, the Johnson School now enrolls nearly 1,600 students in MBA, executive MBA and advanced degree programs in management, accounting, business analytics and more. Programs are offered in Ithaca, the New York City metropolitan area, Beijing and more than 20 additional cities across North and South America.

“The Johnson School is a leader in graduate business education and scholarship. I’m really excited to work towards the mission of the school,” said Gaur, who joined the Cornell faculty in 2007 and previously served as associate dean for MBA programs at the Johnson School. “Our degree programs focus on skills relevant to society and draw on our interdisciplinary academic scholarship. The support of our alumni and the investments they make in our school are incredible. Since the Johnson School joined the SC Johnson College, new opportunities have emerged for faculty research, teaching and collaboration.”

As associate dean for MBA programs from 2014-19, Gaur launched the Digital Technology Immersion, in which MBA candidates and students earning their M.P.S. in data science or applied statistics develop skills in coding, databases and advanced analytics and learn to leverage them to tackle challenges faced by leading companies.

Gaur also created the Master of Science in Business Analytics program offered through eCornell, which provides working professionals a hands-on opportunity to learn about data analytics tools essential to analyzing and optimizing business decisions.

“The creation of these programs represents Vishal’s forward-thinking leadership, which will continue to serve students well into the future,” Karolyi said.

Gaur’s research focuses on data-driven analysis of problems in supply chains, retailing, e-commerce and marketplace operations, and his work was recognized with the Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Accomplishments Award from the Production and Operations Management Society in 2006. He created a method for benchmarking inventory turnover performance of firms, and his current projects involve the reduction of food waste and supply chain risk.

Gaur is the 2022 recipient of the Class of 1992 Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2020 recipient of the Stephen Russell Distinguished Teaching Award and a three-time winner of the Johnson School’s Core Faculty Award. Well-known among students for the care and attention he gives to his teaching, he currently teaches the Semester in Strategic Operations MBA immersion course, where students go on site visits and work on client projects in topics such as industry 4.0, traceability, and sales and operations planning.

Gaur earned his Ph.D. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2001), MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (1995) and BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (1993).

Gaur succeeds Mark W. Nelson, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1990, became dean of the Johnson School in 2016 and will return full time to his position as professor of accounting.

“Mark has been a phenomenal leader,” Karolyi said. “He shepherded the Johnson School through the pandemic, supervised the opening of the Breazzano Center and the Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech and created a positive environment for the entire community. We’re grateful for the impact he’s made on the Johnson School.” 

Alison Fromme is a writer for the SC Johnson College of Business.