About Sharon F. Matusik
Edward J. Frey Dean of Business
Stephen M. Ross Professor of Business
As dean of Michigan Ross, Sharon F. Matusik leads one of the world’s top business schools in advancing its mission to build a better world through business. Her leadership is focused on creating a transformative educational experience that prepares students to lead with purpose and make a positive impact.
Matusik is a leading scholar of strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Since assuming the deanship of the Ross School of Business in 2022, she has advanced an ambitious vision — one that deepens the integration of business, engineering, and technology while expanding the school’s global reach and impact.
Under her leadership, Michigan Ross has launched a series of major strategic initiatives. These include the development of a new campus in Los Angeles designed to serve executive learners and Executive MBA students on the West Coast and globally, extending the school’s reach into one of the world’s most dynamic centers of innovation, technology, and creative industries. She has also championed new programmatic innovations, including a highly integrated dual-degree program that brings together business and engineering to prepare students to lead at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and scalable enterprise.
A hallmark of Matusik’s leadership is her focus on strengthening the connection between disciplines — particularly business and engineering — to better reflect the realities of modern innovation. She has accelerated efforts to position Michigan Ross as a leader in entrepreneurship and action-based learning, building on the school’s distinctive strengths of learning by doing, supporting students working with high-growth companies, and addressing complex technical advances and global changes. Her approach emphasizes technical and analytical excellence, as well as creativity, adaptability, and leadership in uncertain environments.
Matusik also plays a significant leadership role across the University of Michigan. She serves as chair of the Board of the William Davidson Institute, a nonprofit focused on economic development and market-based solutions in emerging economies, and is a member of the Michigan Medicine Compensation Advisory Committee, contributing to initiatives that span global development, healthcare, and institutional strategy. She also serves on the Board of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the premier accreditation body for business schools.
Prior to joining Michigan Ross, Matusik served as dean of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she led efforts to enhance the school’s academic quality, research impact, and student success, and co-chaired a system-wide strategic planning initiative for the $4.5b four-campus University of Colorado system.
An accomplished and widely respected scholar, Matusik’s research examines corporate strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital, with a particular focus on how firms leverage knowledge assets to drive growth and competitive advantage. Her work has been published in leading journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and the Academy of Management Journal. Her work has shaped the understanding of innovation under uncertainty, entrepreneurial finance, and global knowledge flows. She is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Collaboration.
Matusik has received numerous honors for her leadership, scholarship, and teaching, including the University of Colorado’s Excellence in Leadership Award. She has served on the editorial boards of top academic journals, on the Board of Directors of the Strategic Management Society, and has mentored doctoral students who have gone on to leading academic careers worldwide.
Before entering academia, Matusik worked as a consultant in employee benefits, managing teams and advising organizations — experience that informs her pragmatic, impact-oriented leadership style.
Matusik earned her PhD in strategic management from the University of Washington and holds a BA with honors in economics and English from Colby College.
Bridging rigorous scholarship with real-world action, Matusik aims to guide Michigan Ross in shaping the future of business education — advancing a model that integrates business, technology, and hands-on experience to prepare leaders for an increasingly complex, innovation-driven global economy.
