Marketing professor takes helm at Sloan

MIT school aims to lead the pack in management education

David C. Schmittlein, 53, took over as dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management in October 2007. Schmittlein, a native of Northampton and longtime marketing professor and consultant, came to Sloan from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was deputy dean from 2000 to 2007. He recently spoke with Globe reporter Robert Weisman.

How does a guy with a marketing background fit in at MIT?
Let me say MIT's Sloan School for a long time has had a great marketing group that's been associated with some of the real innovations in customer tracking, customer loyalty, customer management. So I'm very proud to join that marketing group. More generally, MIT's Sloan School has many opportunities to do new things, to provide more value to the world. That's kind of what marketing is about at the end of the day.

How do you view the strengths and weaknesses at Sloan compared with those at the Wharton School?
One of the distinctions that's both a strength and sometimes a weakness is our size. We are smaller than the Wharton School. That allows us, on the positive side, to provide a real high-touch experience for our students. There's a joke, that's also true, that if you want to meet a lot of people go to a smaller school because you really will meet people there. And that's quite true for MIT Sloan students. At the same time, we need to be sure that we provide enough opportunities for great networking for our students because we aren't as large as some of the other leading schools of management. That's why, in particular, we work very hard to reach out across the entire MIT community.

What would you cite as the top initiative of your first year?
I would say the most important thing we have achieved is a sense of the greatness of the school that has broad value in the world. We have to be clear about the things that are true about us and are valuable about us and are of broad interest to the world so that the investments that we're already making really do contribute to those points of distinction.

How is your building project in Kendall Square going, and when do you expect to move into your new building?
The building project is going great. It is on time and on budget. We expect to open in late summer or early fall in 2010.

Harvard Business School, which celebrates its centennial this year, casts a long shadow down the Charles River. Can Sloan ever attain equal stature in the field of management education?
Yes, it can and I believe it will. I think the way that you've asked the question is just great because management education is not the same as MBA (master of business administration) education. MIT's Sloan School has been a place, and increasingly in the years ahead will be a place, that tells the truth about the fact that different people need different things from management education at different points in their careers. Harvard is well known, and justifiably, for their MBA program. We offer a great customizable MBA program that is a small, high-touch experience. But we also offer a Sloan fellows program that is right for midcareer professionals. We also offer great undergraduate education that isn't right for every 18- to 22-year-old but is right for some of them. We offer specialized masters programs, including the new master of finance program. These are all, I think, reflections of our commitment to offer the right program for the right person at the right time.

How's your flow of applications to Sloan? Well, I'm sorry to report [laughs] that applications are up 28 percent for the entering class. As you know, applications to leading schools of management tend to go up in times of relative economic softness. But I'm very proud that in this time of increased interest, our success in attracting applicants has exceeded that of our competitors.

Your predecessor, Richard Schmalensee, got involved in some high-profile business cases, such as testifying as an expert witness for Microsoft during its antitrust trial. Do you plan to take public stands on controversial business issues?
I think it is important for people in leadership roles in management - of all kinds, including sitting CEOs - to be willing to stand up and be counted on important issues of the day. I hope to have great opportunities, and certainly intend to take the opportunities, to be, I hope, a thoughtful voice on those kinds of issues.

Do you have some thoughts as to when the US economy will hit bottom and start to recover?
There are already some points of light and strength, and there are some points of ongoing weakness that are likely to be weak for some time to come. The financial services sector, I think, is not likely to go through another traumatic change of the same magnitude we've seen recently. But nor do I expect a dramatic recovery within the next 12 months.

Is entrepreneurship as big a draw for Sloan students today as it was during the tech boom?
Entrepreneurship continues to be a great source of interest among our students. The students today who are interested in entrepreneurship have a much more realistic sense of what it's going to demand from them and what they're going to have to return to investors and to society and to customers than you saw 10 years ago.