Skip to main content

W. P. Carey School dean Mittelstaedt to retire


Dean Robert Mittelstaedt
July 16, 2012

His leadership has helped vault the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University into one of the largest and highest-ranked business schools in the nation. Today, the school’s dean, Robert Mittelstaedt, announces that he will retire, effective spring/summer of next year.

“I’m very proud of the incredible progress we’ve made since I joined the W. P. Carey School of Business in 2004, building on prior success and momentum at the school,” Mittelstaedt said. “Our undergraduate business, full-time MBA and part-time MBA programs are all now consistently ranked Top 30 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

"We’ve also expanded access to include about 10,000 students at the school, as many as some entire universities have. Support and encouragement from the business community and other friends have been extraordinary and really helped to enable our accomplishments. I will truly miss the stellar faculty, staff and students of the W. P. Carey School and thank them and our community and alumni supporters for the many great years we’ve spent, working successfully together to change lives through business education.”

Mittelstaedt joined the W. P. Carey School in 2004, after spending more than 30 years in various leadership positions at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. As a management professor, Mittelstaedt also has taught countless students in the areas of strategy, information technology and corporate governance. He is an experienced business co-founder, a board member of three public companies and author of two business books. He was chosen as the W. P. Carey School’s dean because of his extensive expertise in the business arena.

“In order for the U.S. to continue to enjoy the level of prosperity we have enjoyed in the past, we need to produce highly skilled, entrepreneurial college graduates at scale, in order to drive innovation and sustainable economic growth,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “The quality of the graduates produced by the W. P. Carey School of Business is extraordinary, and that fact is recognized by corporate recruiters, who named ASU one of the top five in the country for producing career-ready graduates who succeed in business. Bob’s leadership has enabled us to accelerate our efforts to produce graduate and undergraduate students with the skills that will meet this critical need.”

Under President Crow and Mittelstaedt’s guidance, the school shot to prominence in the area of research productivity. Currently it is ranked among the top 25 business schools in the nation for research, which benefits both the business world and students’ classroom experience. In fact, a recent article shows MBA students attending schools where the research level is high get paid as much as 21 percent more than other students after three years in the business world.

Another major achievement is the current construction of McCord Hall, a 129,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building that will help the school attract more of the world’s best and brightest students. More than $17 million in gifts and pledges from individuals and corporations are helping to fund the new building, which will complement the school’s other two structures.

Mittelstaedt has taken the school to new heights globally, with its executive MBA programs in Arizona and Shanghai now ranked Top 20 in the world by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, respectively. The school’s 80,000-plus alums include more than 700 business and government leaders who completed the executive MBA program in China.

“Dean Mittelstaedt is concluding an exceedingly successful tenure as dean for which we are extremely grateful,” said ASU Executive Vice President and Provost Betty Capaldi. “His commitment to excellence and organizational and administrative talent has led the W. P. Carey School to its overall top ranking, as well as top rankings in many of its subdisciplines. Bob has also cared deeply about the university and helped serve the many students interested in a business education in innovative ways. We hope to continue to be able to benefit from his knowledge, experience and talents in the future.”

Mittelstaedt is wrapping up an incredibly impressive career in business education. In addition, he is a Navy veteran, having served as an officer on nuclear submarines, and he is a licensed commercial pilot. He looks forward to finally spending more time with his family and friends, as well as possibly taking on some other projects part-time.