Sally Blount will take over as dean of the Kellogg School of Management in July. Blount, who graduated with a Ph.D. from Kellogg in 1992, is currently vice dean of New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and dean of Stern’s undergraduate college. After an official announcement at Northwestern on Wednesday, Blount was already back in New York. She talked to The Daily about leaving her current position, her goals for Kellogg and whether she prefers The Big Apple or The Windy City.
Excerpts:
Daily: Why Northwestern?Blount: ‘Cause NU is wonderful. That one’s easy. I had an amazing four years as a grad student at Northwestern. During those four years I actually had two of my kids. It was just an incredible time where I actually began my career and my family. For a long time I had an apartment at Church and Oak. It was just a wonderful, rich, vibrant four years.
Daily: Washington Square News, NYU’s student newspaper, published an opinion piece honoring you Wednesday. What will it be like to leave Stern?Blount: Really hard. I have loved the students and you can imagine when that editorial came out, it was very touching. I’ve really loved the students. I’ve loved digging into undergraduate education. Over the last six years we’ve had some terrific victories, and it’s hard to leave those kinds of things behind, but the opportunity at Northwestern was pretty compelling, and it’s very unique and it matched me in a very unique way.
Daily: What’s your biggest goal for Kellogg?Blount: The biggest goal is to continue its excellence into the 21st century. It’s an amazing school. Our goal now is to take it into the next generation with the same vibrancy and entrepreneurial spirit that got it onto the map.
Daily: How will you use your global experience in the new position?Blount: Kellogg was one of the first business schools to become seriously global, even by the late ’80s. The strategy that comes as we look forward is, how do we take that global structure that was put into place in the late 20th century and make sure it’s what we need as we move into the 21st century? So I’d say it’s going to be a strategic evaluation. It will be a natural evolution.
Daily: What challenges do you anticipate?Blount: I guess I don’t see them as challenges. What I see is a whole set of opportunities. (Kellogg) has this incredibly unique intellectual approach where both the study of management and the study of markets are given equal footing. It has this incredibly collaborative environment.
Daily: New York or Chicago?Blount: Oh, CHICAGO! In caps. I live in New Jersey right now, the truth be told. I love New York, but I’ve spent most of my adult life in Chicago.
