Sarah A. Soule, a scholar of organizational behavior who has held multiple leadership roles at Stanford, will be the next dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Provost Jenny Martinez announced today.
Soule, the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior, has been a member of the GSB faculty since 2008 and served as the school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2016 to 2023. Since September 2023, she has been the Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.
Soule will begin as the Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean on June 16, 2025. Jonathan Levin previously served as dean of the Graduate School of Business from 2016 until 2024, when he became president of Stanford University. Professor Peter DeMarzo has been serving as interim dean of the school.
“President Levin and I are thrilled that Sarah will be taking this role leading the GSB,” Martinez said. “She brings a deep understanding of organizations, a dynamic and people-centered approach to leadership, and an energetic commitment to advancing the mission of the school and of Stanford itself. As members of the Executive Cabinet, the deans of our schools also provide leadership for the university as a whole. Sarah brings deep experience with Stanford, an institution-wide view, and a real passion for supporting the success of our students, faculty, and staff.”
The appointment comes as the Graduate School of Business this year celebrates the centennial of its opening in 1925, marking 100 years of leadership in management education and research.
“At the GSB, we have always been in the business of transformation, and in particular, the transformation of our students into purposeful and principled leaders,” Soule said. “It’s humbling to think about our graduates, their roles globally, and what they have been able to achieve for the world. I am deeply proud of that legacy and honored to be asked to help shepherd it. There is and will continue to be a central role, even in an age of AI, for the individual, transformational experience we offer at the GSB in creating leaders.”
“I’m also excited to be part of the broader leadership community in the university,” Soule said. “I’ve been impressed with Jon and Jenny and the broader leadership team in place at Stanford. Jon brought the GSB closer to Stanford, and I find that absolutely the right thing to do.”
Soule will be the first woman to serve as dean of the school. A search will be conducted for her successor as director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
In addition to serving in leadership roles at Stanford, Soule has continued an active research program and has continued teaching and mentoring students. Her major areas of academic interest are organizational theory, social movements, and political sociology. Her research examines state- and organization-level policy change and diffusion, and the role social movements have on these processes.
Soule’s teaching includes courses on strategy, organizational design, and design thinking. In the GSB, she also serves as co-director, with DeMarzo, of the Stanford LEAD Online Business Program.
“I’ve worked and collaborated closely with Sarah for many years, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to do so again in her new role as incoming dean,” said DeMarzo, the GSB interim dean and the John G. McDonald Professor of Finance in the school. “In addition to being a proven leader and a great researcher, Sarah brings an authentic, principled, and personable style. She connects well with students, faculty, staff, alumni – pretty much everyone. The GSB is in excellent hands.”
In addition to her faculty appointment in the GSB, Soule is a professor of sociology (by courtesy) in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. Before coming to Stanford in 2008, she was a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and then at Cornell University. She holds a PhD and MA in sociology from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Vermont.
Soule is author of the book Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility and co-author of A Primer on Social Movements. She is a member of the founding team of Sociological Science and serves on the editorial boards of Stanford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Her published work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and elsewhere.
The winner of several teaching awards and faculty fellowships, Soule also has served on a number of boards of nonprofit organizations, is a member of the Faculty Advisory Board to the Stanford d.school, and is a faculty fellow in the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program at Stanford.
“Sarah brings a deep understanding of the GSB as a hub of innovation in both teaching and research as the broader landscape of management education changes,” said Neil Malhotra, the Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy in the GSB, who co-chaired the search committee with Martinez. “She has an exceptional ability to work with diverse groups of people, and she is very rooted in the GSB’s ethos of making positive contributions to the broader society through our academic mission.”
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