Jay Light, dean of Harvard Business School, to retire in June; search to begin for successor

Harvard Business School dean to retire in June

BOSTON — Harvard Business School Dean Jay O. Light will retire in June after 40 years in various posts at the school, the university announced Wednesday.

The decision was not an easy one, said Light, but he felt the timing was right. He said the future holds “significant opportunities and exciting challenges” for his successor.

“Jay Light has been an exemplary leader in a school devoted to the understanding and practice of leadership,” said Harvard University president Drew Faust.

The university will begin a search for a new dean for the 101-year-old business school, Faust said in a statement.

Light, 68, was named interim dean in August 2005 after Kim Clark left the post to become president of Brigham Young University-Idaho. Light was named as permanent dean the following April.

On a conference call with reporters, Light noted that his announcement came on the first day of his fifth decade with the business school. He joined the faculty on Dec. 1, 1969, and served in a variety of posts, including senior associate dean responsible for strategic planning and new initiatives.

Light said he did not intend to pursue other full-time employment after his departure but planned to write and spend more time sailing.

Light said he believed the business school had weathered the worst of the recession after cutting expenses.

“Our cost structure is reset. We’re good to go,” he said, adding that the school was less dependent than other schools at Harvard on distributions from the university’s endowment, which lost nearly 30 percent of its value in the last fiscal year.

The business school formed a panel of experts to study the root causes of the global recession and incorporated courses into its curriculum that dealt with the economic crisis.

“The world has never needed more management education than it needs now. The world has never needed better leaders than it needs now,” he said.