Brad Staats, incoming dean at the University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business
You can’t go home again? Don’t tell Bradley Staats. The native of Austin, Texas earned bachelor’s degrees at the University of Texas in 1998 in electrical engineering and Spanish. Nearly 30 years later, and after 17 years at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, Staats’ life has come full circle. On April 30, he was appointed as the dean of the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business.
Staats’ appointment at McCombs will begin on July 1. He will succeed Lillian Mills, who will return to McCombs as a distinguished faculty member in the Shulkin Department of Accounting after six years at the helm.
“Returning to UT and to Austin, where I grew up, is deeply meaningful and inspiring to me,” Staats says in a news release. “McCombs is already one of the world’s outstanding business schools, thanks in no small part to Dean Mills’ leadership. This is a unique moment to build on that extraordinary foundation, and I am honored by the opportunity to help McCombs expand its impact across Texas and beyond.”
HIGH REGARD & DEEP RESOURCES
Staats steps into an enviable situation at McCombs. Ranked 41st globally by The Financial Times, the school also held the 12th spot in the FT’s review of the breadth and quality of its research, along with posting the 14th-highest score when graduates were surveyed about alumni effectiveness. Among American programs, McCombs placed 18th in April’s U.S. News & World Report ranking. When business deans and MBA directors were surveyed by U.S. News about peer schools this year, McCombs notched the No. 1 score for its Information Systems programming, while ranking among the top 10 in Accounting, Business Analytics, and Real Estate. On top of that, in the 2025 Entrepreneurship ranking from The Princeton Review, McCombs finished second at the undergraduate level and 3rd among graduate schools.
The University of Texas, which ranks among the country’s best in areas like Engineering, Social Work, Pharmacy, and Geosciences, represents another building block for Staats. Popularly known as Forty Acres, UT is home to over 52,000 students. It also boasts nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate programs and over 12,000 courses – not to mention a 500,000-member alumni base who bleed burnt orange. Here, McCombs is at the center of everything, with 25% of students pursuing either a business-related degree or minor at the school according to the press release. That doesn’t count the nearly 700 faculty and staff members who bring a wide array of expertise to McCombs.
Bottom line: Staats will be running one of the largest business programs in the country – in the flagship university of the country’s second-largest state. That creates exposure and opportunity. Just ask Jay Hartzell, the predecessor of Dean Lillian Mills. After a four-year stint at the McCombs dean, Hartzell has since moved on to become the President of both the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University.
McCombs School of Business at University of Texas-Austin is coming off an impressive showing in U.S. News & World Report’s business school ranking. Courtesy photo
A DISTINGUISHED TEACHER & LEADER
Based on his resume, Staats has been preparing to be dean for his whole career. After undergraduate studies, he spent several years at Goldman Sachs, IBM, and Lovett Miller & Company working in investments and strategy. From there, he headed to Harvard Business School, where he earned his MBA in 2002 and his doctorate in Technology and Operations Management in 2009.
Since then, Staats has devoted nearly 17 years to the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, which was named one of Poets&Quants’ 10 Business Schools To Watch in 2026. He started as an assistant professor in 2009, where his teaching load eventually included the core Operations course along with electives in data analytics, healthcare, and project management. Along the way, he has been named a seven-time Teaching All-Star at the school, along with receiving the 2018 Gerald Barrett Faculty Award as the faculty member who made the greatest impact on the MBA program.
Since then, Staats has steadily climbed up the ranks at Kenan-Flagler. In 2019, he was named Associate Dean of MBA programs before being elevated to Senior Associate Dean of Strategy and Academics in 2022. In his current role – along with serving as the Ellison Distinguished Professor of Operations – Staats oversees “undergraduate, MBA, Master of Accounting (MAC), Master of Science in Management (MSM) programs, digital transformation, AI and teaching excellence through the Faculty Consulting Group” according to his resume.
A WORLD-CLASS RESEARCHER
“Brad has made a lasting mark on UNC Kenan-Flagler, as teacher, researcher and academic leader,” says Christian Lundblad, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research at Kenan-Flagler, in a statement to P&Q. “Even while serving in several key leadership roles here, he continued to teach across our degree and executive education programs; conduct research and mentor PhD students; and lead our remarkable Center for the Business of Health.”
In addition, Staats helped to launch Kenan-Flagler’s Executive MBA program in Charlotte – experience that will come in handy with McCombs’ September launch of its Working Professionals program in Houston. At the same time, Staats enjoys a passion project. He leads the UNC Center for the Business of Health, an interdisciplinary venture that brings the university community together to tackle the biggest issues in healthcare delivery, policy, and finance through research, education, and partnerships.
Beyond his teaching and leadership roles, Staats is a highly-cited researcher whose work has appeared in outlets like Management Science, Journal of Operations Management, MIT Sloan Management Review, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. In 2016, his article, “Why Organizations Don’t Learn,” received the 2016 Warren Bennis Prize, which honors the best research on leadership. Two years later, he published Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive, which was honored as a selection for the Next Big Idea Book Club by Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, and Dan Pink.
Austin, Texas
THE AUSTIN ADVANTAGE
For his third act, Staats is making a triumphant homecoming. Few cities are thriving more than Austin, Texas – whose advantages make McCombs a sleeping giant. Known as “Silicon Hills,” Austin is home to over 4,500 startups. In 2025 alone, the region’s startups raked in between $7.19-to-$7.94-billion dollars according to Crunchbase – a sharp increase over the $4-billion estimated by Dealroom in 2024. The birthplace of Dell, Indeed, and Whole Foods, the city has also attracted many of the tech industry’s leading players. Tesla alone employs anywhere from 16,500-21,000 people in Austin – while Apple Amazon, IBM, Cisco, Samsung, and Intel maintain sizable offices in the region.
Translation: McCombs students can tap into one of the country’s top ecosystems for internships, jobs, partnerships, and expertise. And the region pays too, as 2025 MBA grads earned $154,053 in base to start – a 68% jump over their pre-MBA earnings.
More than a commercial epicenter, Austin is the state capitol of Texas. This gives McCombs students access to power brokers just 10 blocks from the school. Even more, Austin is perfectly situated near the crossroads of the state, with metros like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio being 3.5 hours or less away. Of course, there is the “Keep Austin Weird” vibe, supplemented by live music, world-famous tacos, and major attractions like South by Southwest and Austin City Limits.
And let’s not forget Austin’s mild weather – except for those suffocating dog days of July and August.
A LOOK BACK AT LILLIAN HALL’S TENURE AS DEAN
At Kenan-Flagler, Staats witnessed the opening of the 150,000-square foot Steven D. Bell Hall. In 2028, he’ll experience déjà vu, as McCombs will add another 373,000 square feet, when the 17-story Mulva Hall is opened to support the undergraduate population. This comes on top of McCombs boasting one of the most spacious and state-of-the-art business school facilities in the country, Rowling Hall, which covers another 500,000 square feet.
The construction of Mulva Hall is among the milestones achieved by outgoing-Dean Lillian Hall. During her tenure, she successfully navigated McCombs through the COVID pandemic and helping to raise nearly $660-million through the school’s What Starts Here campaign. For Hall, however, the best moments came when she could harness a wide range of expertise to make an impact in areas ranging from AI to ethics.
“I’m beyond proud that I work at a university where the dean of philosophy, the med school dean, and I can sit around and debate what it means to be human,” Hall told P&Q in a 2025 interview. “We can change the world faster if we work together,” she says. “That’s what McCombs is about. That’s what Texas is about. And I’ll always be proud to have been part of that story.”
In a statement released by the University of North Carolina, Staats describes the dean role at McCombs as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” According to William Inboden, executive vice president and provost, Staats comes to McCombs at a “pivotal time” with the right mindset and mix of skills.
“Dr. Staats returns to the Forty Acres with deep expertise and a distinguished record of leadership across industry and healthcare,” Inboden writes in the news release. “I look forward to partnering with him to ensure McCombs continues to cultivate exceptional students and faculty, strengthen industry relationships, and prepare the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders in our great state and nation.”
DON’T MISS: EXIT INTERVIEW: LILLIAN MILLS REFLECTS ON HER ONE-TERM SPRINT AS DEAN OF TEXAS MCCOMBS
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