School Leadership
The Carlson School benefits from a proven and experienced leadership team dedicated to the school’s long-term success.
Jamie Prenkert
Dean
Investors in Leadership Distinguished Chair
BA, Anderson University
JD, Harvard Law School
Jamie Darin Prenkert is the 13th dean of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. He began his tenure on July 3, 2023, leading a school of 5,000 current students and 400+ faculty and staff, with 60,000 alumni in more than 100 countries. In addition, Professor Prenkert is the Investors in Leadership Distinguished Chair.
Prior to joining the Carlson School, Prenkert served as Executive Associate Dean for Faculty and Research and Charles M. Hewitt Professor at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University-Bloomington. During his 20 years at Indiana, he served in several administrative leadership roles and taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses.
His research focuses on issues of employment discrimination and the human rights obligations of transnational corporations. He is the lead coauthor of a leading business law/legal environment of business textbook, Business Law: The Global, Ethical, and Digital Environment, currently in its 18th Edition.
Prior to joining the Kelley School faculty, Dean Prenkert was a senior trial attorney for the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He also practiced with the law firm of Baker & Daniels (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP).
He earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a B.A., summa cum laude with honors in Political Science, from Anderson University.
Mary Benner
Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Program
John and Nancy Lindahl Professor for Excellence in Business Education
Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
PhD, Management, Columbia University
MBA, Stanford University
BS, Economics, University of Minnesota
Mary Benner is a Professor in the Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship Department. She has a PhD in management from Columbia University, an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and a BS in economics from the University of Minnesota. She joined the Carlson School in 2010.
Her research, at the intersection of organization theory and strategic management, explores how firms innovate and adapt to technological changes. She has studied the effects of systematic process management practices such as ISO 9000 and Six Sigma on firms' innovation and responses to new technologies, and is currently examining the influence of financial markets and securities analysts in how established firms innovate and address the opportunities and challenges of technological change. Her research is published in leading academic journals and has won several awards, including the Academy of Management Review's Decade Award and Best Paper Award. She has been a Co-Editor of the Strategic Management Journal since January 2023. She served as a Senior Editor at Strategy Science in 2022, as an Associate Editor at Administrative Science Quarterly from 2012 to 2021, and as a Senior Editor at Organization Science from 2010-2012. She also serves on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Review. She was named to the Poets & Quants list of the Best 50 Undergraduate Professors in 2020.
She was an assistant professor in the Management Department at The Wharton School from 2001-2010. Prior to that, she also held managerial positions at Honeywell and was a consultant and consulting manager with the economic consulting firm Data Resources, Inc.
Vlad Griskevicius
Associate Dean of Academic Innovation and Operations
Carlson Family Foundation Chair in Marketing
BA, Economics & Psychology, University of California at Santa Cruz
PhD, Psychology, Arizona State University
Vlad Griskevicius has an extensive background in psychology, communication and motivation. He believes that education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. As Associate Dean, he aspires to light the fires of 3000 students through a truly transformative educational experience that enables every student to become their best self.
In addition to teaching courses on the Power of Story, Persuasion & Influence, and Designing Your Life, Vlad has published over 100 scholarly works and is co-author of The Rational Animal – a book about how our deep-seated ancestral motivations shape modern behavior. He previously served as Chair of the Marketing Department and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Marketing Research. His life goal is to raise his four kids — and all the students he encounters — to be good human beings and to never stop learning because life never stops teaching.
Stephen T. Parente
Associate Dean of Carlson Global Institute
Professor, Minnesota Insurance Industry Chair Of Health Finance
BA, Health and Society, University of Rochester-New Yorks
MS, Public Policy Analysis, University of Rochester-New York
MPH, Health Economics, University of Rochester-New York
PhD, Health Finance and Organization, Johns Hopkins University
Stephen T. Parente, PhD, MPH, MS is a Professor in the Department of Finance and the Minnesota Insurance Industry Chair of Health Finance in Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. From 2014-2017, he served as Associate Dean of MBA and MS programs. Dr. Parente is the longest serving Director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute (2006-2017). As a Professor in the Finance Department, he specializes in health economics, information technology, and health insurance. Dr. Parente has been the principal investigator on large funded-studies regarding consumer directed health plans, health information technology and health policy micro-simulation. In Washington DC, he served as the Governing Chair of the Health Care Cost Institute from 2013 to 2017. He is the Founding Director of the Medical Valuation Laboratory, a nine college interdisciplinary effort to accelerate medical innovation from scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs. Dr. Parente was a health policy advisor for the McCain 2008 Presidential Campaign and served as Legislative Fellow in the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D‑WV) in 1992/93. He has a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.
Myles Shaver
Associate Dean of Faculty and Research
Curtis L. Carlson School-wide Chair in Corporate Strategy
Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship
PhD, International Business, University of Michigan
Bachelor of Commerce, University of Alberta
Myles Shaver is Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management where he holds the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Corporate Strategy.
Myles’ research about corporate expansion is published in leading scholarly journals and he is invited to present at conferences and universities around the world. His recent research about the Minneapolis-St. Paul Headquarters economy has helped guide talent attraction and retention initiatives in the region and is presented in his book: Headquarters Economy: Managers, Mobility, and Migration. Myles presents this research to audiences in Minnesota and to audiences in other states and countries.
Myles is a recipient of the Irwin Outstanding Educator Award – the most prestigious international teaching award in Strategic Management and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business Distinguished PhD Alumni Award. A recent study identified Myles as one of the most prolific management scholars in the world and Poets and Quants profiles Myles in their compilation of the “World’s 50 Best Business School Professors.”
Myles is a Fellow and President-Elect of the Strategic Management Society.
Mary Zellmer-Bruhn
Associate Dean of MBA and MS Programs
BBA, Marketing, University of Wisconsin
MS, Management, University of Wisconsin
PhD, Organizational Behavior, University of Wisconsin
Mary Zellmer-Bruhn is a Professor in the Work and Organizations Department. From 2019-2023 she served as Department Chair. Her research focuses on teamwork, including the formation and design of teams, entrepreneurial teams, and cross-cultural teamwork. Recent work adds a focus on language diversity and the experiences of migrants at work. Her research is published in numerous premiere journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, and the Strategic Management Journal. Professor Zellmer-Bruhn currently serves as Senior Editor for Organization Science and has previously served as Area Editor for the Journal of International Business Studies. Professor Zellmer-Bruhn teaches courses on the management of teams, organizational behavior, and cross-cultural management along with numerous executive education offerings. She has received the Carlson School's Excellence in Teaching, Outstanding Honor's Faculty and the Carlson Executive MBA Curtis Cup Award for Excellence teaching awards. Professor Zellmer-Bruhn has a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.