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“We had an impressive shortlist, including names from North America, but everyone had to present their vision for the school to the university electoral board, and Colin Mayer proved the best candidate.”When he moves his books into the dean’s office next autumn, Professor Meyer will be expected to start raising the school’s research profile and boosting Oxford’s executive education courses.”The issue for any dean is whether or not they are able to galvanise the internal resources to encourage talent and enhance the reputation of the business school,” says Roy Westbrook “We’re confident that Colin Mayer can do all these things Otherwise we’d still be looking for someone.”. So, was it tempted to look across the Atlantic, as London Business School has done, and hire an academic from a well-known US university? “We told the headhunters we wanted them to look widely and asked them to approach the top 10 US schools to find out who they’d like on their list if they were choosing a dean,” says Roy Westbrook. “Most of the world’s top business schools are research-led institutions and we are part of a great university. So, we felt we needed someone with the right academic background.”Colin Mayer, he points out, has run his own economics consultancy – and can thus lay claim to understanding commercial life, as well as the academic world.Oxford is unashamed about its desire to rank alongside the US top names. He gives the impression that he has the students and staff in Chicago behind him.”I will support the heck out of our students,” Snyder says. “But I’ve rejected unequivocally the model, now dominant in the US, that students are customers and therefore should be catered to.”In other words, if Chicago’s students want their school’s reputation to continue to ride high, they had better back his decisions – and the endowment fund. He is very aware Chicago’s endowments lag behind its US rivals.

“If we do what’s right for the school, support will follow,” he says.The course’s 16-week tuition costs £53,800 and is organised in week-long modules, designed to fit the lifestyles of the students – average age 35, and from 37 countries – who have signed up. A quarter of their time will be spent mixing with students from the other two campuses.Chicago’s presence in London will provide renewed competition for London Business School’s two-year global executive MBA (£64,000) and the London School of Economics’s Trium Emba (£58,000) Both are run in partnership with foreign colleges. Snyder doesn’t hide his dislike of partnerships.It’s easy, he says, for two deans having a chat to say, “Why don’t we do something together?” But there can be problems with co-ordination, marketing, programming and most of all, getting the co-operation of the faculties who must deliver the programs. His sojourn among the dreaming spires lasted less than three years. His successor, Anthony Hopwood, proved more adept at negotiating a path through university bureaucracy.When he retires next year he will be followed by another established Oxford academic, Professor Colin Mayer, who was chosen after a selection process lasting almost a year.”We asked the headhunters to scour the world and produce a shortlist,” says Professor Roy Westbrook, who sat on the selection panel along with the university vice chancellor. “Leo Murray was just right for Cranfield,” says John Arnold, “but it’s important for us to have someone who is respected within the ranks of academia. Someone from business might find coping with the Byzantine ways of university life just too difficult.”That is exactly what happened nine years ago when the economist John Kay was appointed as the first director of the Said Business School at Oxford University.

Leo Murray, former dean of Cranfield Management College worked as a tobacco industry executive before being lured to academia. But for business schools attached to a big university, this may be a step too far. It’s important to be acceptable to academia, but also to the external business community.” Business schools which can’t find the perfect candidate should, he argues, consider splitting the role between two people. “Doing this would allow you to hire a respected academic and a well-known, well networked retiree from a large corporation who could sell the institution externally.”Henley Management College recently opted for a figurehead from the commercial world when it appointed Chris Bones, a former senior executive with Cadbury Schweppes as its principal. The successful candidate will, according to the ad, need to combine management experience with academic credibility and an international reputation.The university is also on the lookout for someone who can prove they are a successful fundraiser.

It’s a tall order, according to Professor David Norburn, former principal at the Tanaka business school at Imperial College in London “You need to have a split personality to do the job. We’ll pay what it takes.”In the meantime, Cambridge University has already placed an advert in the Economist magazine for someone to replace Professor Sandra Dawson at the Judge Institute of Management. Ashridge is thought to have wooed its current dean, Professor Kai Peters, from Rotterdam to the UK with a salary of about £150,000 and a bonus package based on raising the school’s profile.”When we started looking for my replacement at Manchester we were willing to go over £200,000 to get the right person Unfortunately we didn’t find that person,” says John Arnold “This time we may go higher. The people who lead them increasingly compare themselves with the chief executives of private companies and expect to be rewarded accordingly.Laura Tyson, the American dean of the London Business School (LBS), commands a salary package of over £300,000.

It’s about offering something for the candidate and his or her family. A bright star in his or her mid-forties is likely to have a spouse who may work, children and a set of criteria for their personal lifestyle. It’s not all about the biggest salary.”But money does matter. Business schools are the big earners for many universities, with lucrative MBA programmes bringing in much needed income. Professor John Arnold, who agreed to extend his term as director until a successor could be found, believes the business school has to do more than simply sign up headhunters and draw up a shortlist.
“When we started looking first time round we didn’t get things quite right. We were still developing our strategy for the newly merged school, and we lacked a clear proposition to sell to candidates.”This time around, he says, the school will be doing research on potential candidates before any advert is placed in the press “This is a courtship process.