Thomas W. Gilligan Appointed Dean

of the McCombs School of Business

AUSTIN, Texas – Dr. Thomas W. Gilligan, the E. Morgan Stanley Chair in Business Administration and professor of finance and business economics at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles, has been appointed dean of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
 
The appointment of Gilligan, who from February 2006 to April 2007 was interim dean of the Marshall School of Business, is effective Sept. 1, said Dr. Steven Leslie, provost at The University of Texas at Austin.  He said the selection of Gilligan followed a nationwide search by an 18-member committee headed by Dr. Michael Granof, a professor in the McCombs School of Business.
 
Gilligan will succeed Dr. George W. Gau, whose six-year appointment as dean of the business school ends in August.
 
Granof said there was remarkable unanimity among members of the committee, as well as other people who met Gilligan in the selection process, that he has the scholarly credentials, administrative experience and charisma they would like to see in the dean of their business school. 
 
“There is no question that the McCombs School of Business has the potential to be one of the truly top business schools in the world and Thomas Gilligan has the ability and skills to take us in that direction,” Granof said.
 
“Tom Gilligan is a visionary leader,” said William Powers Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin. “In cooperation with our outstanding faculty, he will take the McCombs School to a new level of distinction.”
 
Gilligan said his family is excited to join The University of Texas at Austin community.
 
“I am honored and invigorated by the prospect of leading the McCombs School of Business to even more accomplishments and greater prominence,” Gilligan said.
 
Leslie said, "Tom Gilligan has the personal and professional capabilities, the energy and commitment to excellence, and the leadership skills to be a superb dean. I look forward to working with him to build upon the excellence of the McCombs School of Business."
 
Gilligan, who received his bachelor of arts degree with honors from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, and doctor’s degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis, has held positions at the University of Southern California as vice-dean for undergraduate and doctoral education and chair of the Department of Finance and Business Economics. He also has been a visiting professor at the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in Stanford, Ca.  Gilligan’s areas of interest are microeconomics, applied price theory, industrial organization, antitrust economics and public choice.
 
Prior to his first academic position as an assistant professor of economics at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in 1984-1987, Gilligan served four years as a Russian linguist in the United States Air Force. From 1982-1983 he was a staff economist on President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.

Gilligan has been a co-editor of the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization (2001-2006), Business and Politics (1999-present), Journal of Economics and Management Strategy (1998-2005) and Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics (1996-present), and has been a referee of over two dozen other journals. He has authored and co-authored articles in numerous journals and other publications.

Photo: Sasha Haagensen