Welcome MBA Class of 2020

Maura Herson

Assistant Dean, MBA Program Office

Maura Herson is the Assistant Dean of the MBA Program. She is responsible for setting the strategic direction and coordinating the overall delivery of the MBA Program. She facilitates work across faculty and staff related to admissions, curriculum, extracurricular activities, and professional development for the 900+ MBA students.

David Schmittlein

John C Head III Dean

David Schmittlein joined the MIT Sloan School of Management as John C Head III Dean in October, 2007. His focus, since arriving on campus, has been to broaden MIT Sloan's global visibility, work with the faculty to create new high-quality management education programs, develop enhanced educational opportunities for current students, and to develop and disseminate business knowledge that has impact and will stand the test of time. He has also reached out to the many members of MIT's alumni community to gain their valuable insights on MIT Sloan and management education. Prior to his appointment at MIT Sloan, Dean Schmittlein served on the faculty at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1980 until 2007. While at Wharton, he was the Ira A. Lipman Professor and Professor of Marketing. He also served as Interim Dean during July 2007 and as Deputy Dean from 2000-2007. In addition, he was chair of the editorial board for Wharton School Publishing. Dean Schmittlein received a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Business from Columbia University and B.A. in Mathematics (magna cum laude) from Brown University. His research assesses marketing processes and develops methods for improving marketing decisions. He is widely regarded for his work estimating the impact of a firm's marketing actions, designing market and survey research, and creating effective communication strategies. Dr. Schmittlein has served as a consultant on these issues for numerous firms, e.g. American Express, American Home Products, AT&T, Bausch & Lomb, Boston Scientific, Ford Motor Company, Gianni Versace S.p.A., Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Revlon, Siebe PLC, The Oakland Raiders, The Quaker Oats Co., and Time Warner. He has over forty publications, most in leading journals in Marketing, Management, Economics and Statistics. He has been an area editor for Marketing Science and a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters and Marketing Science. Dr. Schmittlein serves on the International Advisory Board for Groupe HEC, the Governing Board of the Indian School of Business, the International Advisory Board of Lingnan (University) College of Sun Yat-sen University, and the Advisory Board for the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University. He has served on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council for Marketing and Branding. He has been a visiting professor in the Faculty of Economics at Tokyo University, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Washington University's John M. Olin School of Business. He has received awards for his research, his editorial work, and his teaching. His observations and research have been cited often in the popular press, including Advertising Age, Business 2.0, Business Week, China.com, Computerworld, Fortune, NPR's Marketplace, People's Daily Online, Reuters, The ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Dr. Schmittlein is a member of the American Statistical Association and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS).

Rodrigo Verdi

Nanyang Technological University Professor of Accounting

Rodrigo Verdi is the MBA Faculty Director and a Professor of Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Verdi is also an editor at The Accounting Review and an associate editor at Management Science.

Verdi has broad interest in capital markets research in accounting and finance. His past research investigates the economic consequences of financial reporting quality to investment efficiency and to the cost of capital. He also has studied the interaction between accounting information, voluntary disclosure, and market efficiency. Overall, VerdiÔÇÖs research provides insights into the role of accounting information in corporate finance decisions and in capital markets behavior.

Verdi holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.