Henrik Cronqvist, Dean of the Argyros College of Business and Economics at Chapman University, joins moderators Jim Ellis and Dave Ikenberry for Episode 36 of the Deans Counsel Podcast.
Dr. Cronqvist became Dean of the Argyros College in July 2022 and has since implemented a series of programs and initiatives. He has leveraged a "crown jewel strategy" to build the reputation of the Argyros College beyond Southern California by capitalizing on the strength of Chapman's nationally ranked film school.
“Coming into any new business school as a dean, you have to think about what are the resources that exist out there that are really outstanding and phenomenal.” Cronqvist said.
Living in the shadow of Disney and Hollywood, Dr. Cronqvist shares how they identified opportunities to tailor undergraduate programs for the entertainment industry and how they have positioned their MBA program to provide new career opportunities.
Listen as Dr. Cronqvist shares important details about discussions with Chapman’s president and provost, and tips for managing up for success.
“The advice that I got from a very experienced university leader is that in your meetings with the provost, always go in [and] talk about…” Cronqvist said.
From the perspective of a new dean driving deep change, Episode 36 is a must-listen for current and aspiring deans.
Listen to Episode 36 here -
About Dr. Henrik Cronqvist:
A native of Sweden, Dr. Cronqvist received a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and an M.S. in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. His PhD Advisor was Nobel Laureate Richard H. Thaler. Before joining the Argyros College in 2022, Dr. Cronqvist was Vice Dean, Bank of America Scholar, and Professor of Finance at the University of Miami Herbert Business School, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Finance and Director of Ph.D. Programs. Before returning to the U.S., Dr. Cronqvist was the Zhongkun Group Chair at China Europe International Business School, China’s top-ranked business school. Previously, he was the McMahon Family Chair and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College’s Robert Day School of Economics and Finance. He started his academic career at The Ohio State University, where he received the Fisher College of Business Pace Setter Award for Excellence in Research. He has been a Visiting Professor at Yale University and the University of California-Irvine.
Photos courtesy of Chapman
Show Transcript
Dave 0:30
Welcome to Dean's Counsel, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists can Kring gemellus and Dave Ikenberry engage in conversation with highly accomplished Dean's and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Dean's face and one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the academy. After serving in several leadership roles at the University of Miami's Harvard School of Business, Henrik crimefest, felt well prepared to take on the Dean ship of Chapman University's argues School of Business in July of 2022. Located in Orange County, this business school resides within the Uber competitive landscape of Southern California, home to so many great and well recognized business schools. In this episode of Dean's Council, we hear from Henrik as to how in such a short period of time, he has repositioned argues, to take advantage of one of the university's crown jewels. Its Film and Media School ranked fourth in the United States. We hear his approach to engaging faculty and staff in this key strategic planning effort, which has now given the school unique and distinctive field consistent with its location near Hollywood and the entertainment industry. We also hear helpful advice on a range of other topics, including how to motivate change, by allowing for risk taking, and also how to manage up when working with one's provost.
Jim 2:00
Welcome today to a conversation with Henrik Cronquist, who is the dean of the Azure school at Chapman University in Orange, California. Henrik has been in the job since last fall. So he's relatively new on the job. However, he walked into a school that had a very, very strong impetus for him to make some connections in that their school of cinema is ranked in the top four. And so here he's got a school that he can draft off of, and I thought it'd be good to have the conversation about how do you deal with a school that has a lot of strengths that you can you can add to you can, you can augment many different things to improve your curriculum and your student participation. So I thought we'd start with that, let Henrik talk a little bit about how he works with a school with the reputation that their cinema school has. So Henrik, welcome. It's great to have you. Take it away.
Henrik Cronqvist 3:00
It's great to be here. Jim, thank you so much for the opportunity. You know, as a relatively new dean, I assumed my dean ship in the summer of 2022. So it's been about a year and a half now. And your podcast has been a phenomenal resource for me to learn from other Dean's what they have done, how they think and, and getting some new ideas. To your question, Jim, about coming into to Chapman, which is a mid sized private university in Southern California, 10 minutes from Disneyland and 20 minutes from Newport Beach, then, you know, the Business School is currently not as well known outside of the local and and region where we are in. So that is part of our mission to work on that to get a more national reputation. But one part of Chapman University that is really, really well regarded both nationally in the United States and also internationally, is the Dodge college for film and media arts. And so that is number four ranked film school in the country. So I sort of I call it Jim, the crown jewel strategy. And I think, you know, coming into any new business school as a dean, you have to think about what are the resources that exist out there that are really outstanding and phenomenal. So for the top top elite schools, they tend to be very strong across the board in many, many different areas. But a university like Chapman tends to have pockets of excellence. And so how do you sort of associate yourself with those pockets of excellence in a way that would further the mission of the business school in addition to the university? And so when I came in here to to Chapman, one of the first meetings that I took was with the dean of the film school, and we sat down and we discuss asked what we could do together and what would be sort of a win win win, actually, both for the business school for the film school, and ultimately for the university as well. And I hope that we get a chance to talk a little bit about some of the specifics or some of the initiatives that we did together.
Jim 5:16
Yeah, I think we definitely should, because there are many schools around the country that have a similar situation, as you do with a crown jewel. We can look at Johns Hopkins and their medical enterprise and a brand new Carey School, there's, there's a number of them. And so for you to talk about those initiatives, I think would be great. Getting in getting a little granular here into the specifics would be terrific. So if you wouldn't mind doing that, that'd be great.
Henrik Cronqvist 5:41
Yeah, I think the first thing that we decided to do was to create a new minor in our undergraduate program called business of entertainment. And so that's a collection of courses, both from the business school and then also from the film school. And, and also in order to make this a win win. I mean, it was important for me to understand as well, what can we contribute as a business school to to film school? And it turns out that the answer to that was that if you educate and your output is people that go into the film and media industry, they become directors, they become producers, they become screenwriters, you know, it's good for them to know a little bit of business. And that's good for the job outcomes, and they can get better salaries for their students. And that's sort of what I learned from talking to the dean of the film school, that that was something that they would values. So that would be sort of the value proposition for why would they, as a top ranked film, school associate themselves with us a business school that is up and coming. So the first thing that we did, we created this new minor called business of entertainment. And being a private school, we had the advantage of being a little bit quicker than perhaps some other schools that face a lot more red tape. So I came on board in 2022, and already in the fall of 2023. So within one year, we had graded this new minor. And we're actually talking right now about developing this into a major, also called business of entertainment. And it's quite selective. It's very small minor right now, not that many students. So it's a program that is difficult to get into when I think that we'll father sort of our our mission are moving up in terms of the of the rankings. And so that's one thing that we did, and trying to sort of sprinkle in into the different initiatives that were driving this collaboration with our film school. That's what we have done in other domains as well. For example, we have a leadership lecture series in the Business School. And in the film school, they have what they call masterclass where they feature a lot of famous directors, artists, writers, and so on. So we collaborated with the film school and we had some terrific names that we were able to feature in front of our audience of business students and alumni. Jeff Katzenberg was one, of course, from Dreamworks, we had Ari Emanuel, recently from William Morris, the the famous Hollywood agent. And so he could sort of CO brand is as the master class in the film school and as the leadership lecture series for the business school. And then in terms of other programs at the masters level that we are creating. When I came in here, we didn't have a very big set of specialized master's degrees. And of course, that has been a growth segment in a lot of different business schools. We had only two when I came on board here in accounting, and in real estate. So we're now in the process of launching a new one in business analytics. And of course, they have existed for some 20 years at some schools, and ours would be a new program. So we were thinking about how could we position that around business of entertainment, and create sort of something new and innovative in the marketplace. So one of the sort of specializations that we will have in our new business analytics program will be analytics as it pertains to the entertainment industry, because a lot of these companies Hulu, Disney, plus Paramount plus, I mean, a lot of a lot of it is about analytics these days. And given where we are located and given our collaboration with a film school, we think that that might be a way to position our master's program that would be successful.
Dave 9:38
Right, Henrik, share with us this concept of the crown jewel strategy share with us how you seasoned that and and expose that to the faculty more broadly and what was the mechanism and how how's the receptivity been and pros and cons and what's it been like?
Henrik Cronqvist 10:00
Yeah, I think it's good questions, Dave, I would say so first of all, I mean, I was obviously aware, even before I took the Dean's ship here that the film school was superior had a great reputation. And that was one of the things that attracted me to take on the role in the first place now, to how to get the faculty input, I think, you know, interdisciplinary initiatives is something that our provost and presidents they tend to appreciate, right. So that's another advantage in terms of collaborate across the campus with other schools. Of course, the faculty buy in, I would say, given that we were trying to associate ourselves more strongly with the crown jewel with one of those sort of superior assets, so to speak, within the university, I think that was attractive to our faculty, because the students that they would have in the classroom, that would be say, a double major in film, and in business, they tend to be very strong students, right. So we were associated ourselves with a highly selective school that had great students. So our faculty would feel like it would be okay to associate ourselves with that school. Because, you know, as you know, some professors that may have a more sort of quantitative mindset, they come from, say, accounting or finance, they may feel that, you know, why should we associate ourselves with film? Isn't that sort of that's the, isn't that all about marketing and sort of the soft aspects? Yeah. But it turns out that because the students were pretty strong, I think that helped in terms of getting the buy in. Yeah,
Dave 11:36
Yeah, I think that's interesting. I, I do think there's, and I'll just share a little anecdote I had at Colorado i. So at Colorado, there was a phase and we're still in it to some degree, but where entrepreneurship had really been lifted up as a central theme. Of course, that's not particularly unique. Lots of universities, lots of programs have that. But anyway, it was a, it fits with Boulder, it's fits with Colorado, and we were wearing that on our sleeve. And I was in the first year, first year and a half of my tenure and piccata, I was on the road. And I got this urgent call from a faculty member. And he says, I just want you to know, I'm getting ready to resign. And this was one of my top publishers in the accounting program. And I said, Please don't leave, I hardly unpacked my bags. And he goes, I have to leave. Because you know, I'm an accountant. And there's no place for me in an entrepreneurial school. And it was just a very eye opening experience. I pleaded with him, I cajoled him, I lost the case, he was gone within 48 hours. But I do think we need to take care that our faculty whose identity might be this and it couldn't be because entrepreneurship is so close to business, whereas cinema is, you know, it was cinema or nursing or engineering, maybe that maybe that threat to one's personal identity isn't so clean, but I was dealing with it. And maybe you won't have that hopefully, you won't have that.
Henrik Cronqvist 13:15
Hopefully, I will not have that. It was it was interesting day because before joining Chapman I was at University of Miami, right. And I was Vice Dean and, and the sort of the crown jewel strategy that Dean Klaus Jonquils, who you had on this podcast before, was driving was a collaboration with the famous school called a Rosenstiel school for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. They host a lot of the hurricane researchers, which of course, makes sense if you're in Miami, and you face the hurricanes occasionally. And their strategy was to build a program around sustainability and a sustainable business program. And it was very important to the dean to not create sort of a greenwashing program, but a robust program that had connection with the real sciences. So in that particular case, it made a lot of sense to collaborate with this famous school for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, right? I mean, in some of these cases, it's driven by the geographical endowment. If you're in Miami, you face hurricanes, and you have strong centers for research in that area. Yeah, if you're Chapman, and you're half an hour from the Hollywood sign and the media industry, then you're sort of geographically and Dowd with a connection to the media industry.
Jim 14:34
You know, I do think it's interesting listening to you guys talk about this because one of the things that that the entertainment industry has always dealt with and it was quite a number of famous cases, relative to their creative accounting, and accountants in entertainment are absolutely critical. Because there are so many different ways for them to keep their books to make that movie look success. So to make the studio look successful, there's lots of different things. So the opportunity for accountants in the entertainment business is the same as I think in the in the entrepreneurship world. So I think that it's really interesting, Dave, that you fought that. Because those, those opportunities seem bigger to me than they do smaller. So let's change gears for a second, from faculty, to students, did you do anything different in your initiatives in your collaboration with the film media, school, to market to students to try and talk about the fact that you were situated right on the same campus as they are, and there's opportunities there in terms of classes, et cetera, et cetera? And was it successful?
Henrik Cronqvist 15:45
So far, it was very successful. It's a small program right now, the minor is very selective, following our film school overall being, you know, super selective in terms of the students that they bring in. I think there was a lot of pent up demand here, Jim, for something like this, that would be more formalized. There were students that were already before taking classes, both in the film school and in the business school. But this would be a way for them to on their resume, put it in a little bit more concrete terms, you have the minor in business of entertainment, it's more specific what that is. And I think parents like it as well. Because you know, if the son or daughter, they come home, and they say they want to become a director, a film director, that is sort of, you know, the chance that you will become the next Spielberg is pretty small, right? But if you say, hey, I want to, you know, work in the entertainment industry defined broadly as so you know, feel media, sports, eSports, gaming, all of the kind of stuff that is in the LA area, then it makes it more appetizing, you know, one, one area where we haven't done that much yet, but it might be an area in the future where we should work more, and that's in our MBA program. I mean, I'm, of course facing the same situation as all other Dean's with the demand for MBA education not being as high as it used to be. But one thing also talking to people at some of the elite MBA programs that they have noticed after COVID, or in the last couple of years, is that there has been more interest among students going into the entertainment industry. And so not everyone going to the top programs want to go and work for BCG, or McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan, or private equity anymore. Of course, there's still that, but the entertainment industry is interesting. And I personally know a bunch of people in Hollywood that have gone to elite MBA programs that are now agents or they are part of, you know, CAA or some of the major talent agencies. So I think if this trend will continue, that the the entertainment segment of the market would continue to be strong, that should be a good thing for for an MBA program to position ourselves a little bit more around that.
Jim 18:09
Good point.
Dave 18:09
How's the transition from Miami to the Chapman bit? And you know, just thinking more about those early steps you take, you've obviously launched this big initiative, but you know, tell us about your broader approach to strategic planning and and in starting your administration? I think
Henrik Cronqvist 18:30
that's, that's a very good question, Dave. I would say I mean, one of the things that is perhaps a little bit unique about my background is that I really got in after having had mainly a research career for a number of years as a as a scholar, publishing and top journals going to the same conferences as the as you Dave, I remember as being an NVR and other places. And then I got into administration in Miami, and I served in three different Vice Dean roles during a relatively short period of time. So I'm not, so I'm more of a generalist rather than a specialist. So I haven't before taking on my role as a dean, I hadn't been running MBA programs for 15 years and knowing every single detail about MBA programs, but I had covered at least at some at some depth. I had covered graduate programs, executive education, lifelong learning, and most importantly, probably faculty and research. So yeah, you're right, when you come on board to you due to strategic planning, which, which I did. I was sort of a little bit fortunate that it was also pushed by AACSB re accreditation. We're actually up for that right now. And so that was timely not to do it in the first year, but in the second year as a dean, so that puts some sort of pressure on all of us, myself, our faculty and all the stakeholders involved to Hey guys, we gotta you know, look in To our five year planning, which we did my own my own philosophy on strategies that I think it was Peter Drucker that said something like, strategies a sense of direction around which to improvise. And so, you know, we came up with basically, you know, five, five pillars in our strategic plan, which we got buy in from, from faculty and other stakeholders. But then I think we're, you know, ready to pivot a little bit around that, as we have to, you know, improvise, as Peter Drucker would say, I guess. Right.
Dave 20:35
So, did you use a lot of faculty engagement, you know, multiple planning session? You know, how did you kind of structure that piece of it?
Henrik Cronqvist 20:44
Yeah, it's a good question. And I think the advice that I got, and based on my experience at my previous institutions, we've we focused here on, we had a few different groups if we talk about faculty, for example. So we had one group of faculty that were tenured faculty and tenure track faculty, who are focusing on the research mission. And it's something that is important for Chapman, as we're trying to climb up the ranks to be a bit more focused on the research mission, that what we have been historically. So we had one group of faculty that were discussing items related to everything from, you know, summer support to what should be the incentives to publish, and which are the journals that are important, and, and all of those kinds of things that goes into both strategy and tactics related to improving the research mission. And then we had another group on faculty, we have probably about a quarter of our faculty, our professors, or professional practice, or clinical professors, many of them run some of our centers, some of them run our academic programs. And so we had a separate session with them, because they were focusing more on the teaching mission of our school, and it was a different set of considerations that were were important to them. And then of course, we have our advisory board and our students to get buy in and input from them as well. So I would say that was sort of the approach. But I think on the faculty side, I thought it was pretty useful. And I think it worked out pretty well to sort of split up between the research mission and the teaching mission, because both are important at Chapman. But the type of considerations that and how you think about it is quite different. And if you don't have the research mindset or background, it's very difficult to you know, be be part of those conversations.
Dave 22:37
Right.
Jim 22:37
You know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is when you when you came into the job, what what did you see as the biggest hurdle that you had to jump? What issues did you face as a, as a brand new dean in a school that is on a very, very upward trend? And I will just tell you one thing, Dave Hendricks enthusiasm level is over the top. So from that standpoint, he's he's got enthusiasm to burn. I'm sure his faculty spins up very quickly. But, Bill, there were hurdles you had to jump. I know, tell us about those that
Henrik Cronqvist 23:12
may be related to, you know, the level of energy that I do have, which might be fueled by my two espressos that I had before we went on the recording you. You haven't believed me? Hey, that's right. Yeah, you're probably right. But but that is that is true that, you know, in terms of, you can have a more minimalist approach and focus on maybe one or two initiatives study or driving, or you can have an approach where you are driving a larger number of different initiatives. And I think I would fall in the latter category. So I like to drive a number of different things. And knowing that part of it might be because I've been involved in in venture capital, and then we know that, you know, not everything that you do in your portfolio will work out and that's okay. And so, I would say, you know, one of the challenges, perhaps, when I came on board was that I do have that energy and drive to do quite a few different initiatives across the board, whether that is to revamp our Entrepreneurship Center, doing more in the space, or business and entertainment, and to revamp our Career Center. And and that can be of course, the challenge to get everyone on board and realizing that, you know, we have many different priorities at the same time, and we're driving many different things. So I would say that that is something that is always important to try to manage.
Dave 24:40
Henrik, you've had some great experiences prior to arriving at Chapman, but what's been your biggest surprise, what would you point at?
Henrik Cronqvist 24:49
Yeah, that's, um, you know, that's a that's a very good question, Dave. I would say, overall, I have had an amazing experience here. And I would say I have been fortunate enough to have a good relationship with my Provost who has been very supportive and who is not. Fortunately, a micromanager, but who views her role as hiring and firing Dean's? And I think so far being on the on the right side of that, yeah, stay on that side of the coin, right. But but but that has been great, because I know many others have other experiences. And I've seen close close up other experiences where there has been a lot more, you know, detailed management. And so we have been able to do in a relatively short period of time, a lot of different things for our school. And I think that would, I would characterize that as a little bit of a surprise of a positive surprise. And that has been, you know, that has been great. And one thing that I was enthusiastic about when I came on board was our Entrepreneurship Center, that we had a different experience here in California than what we had in Florida with respect to COVID. So when I came on board here in 2022, California was still coming out of COVID. While in Florida, we had quite a different kind of experience. So I would say that that was also a little bit of a surprise, I would say, Dave, in terms of how different the COVID experience has been, in terms of what what you were able to do during that period of time. Right.
Dave 26:24
So going back to your provost for just a moment, you mentioned she's has a hands off leadership style, but how do you? How will you use the word manage? I'm not sure that's the right word. But how are you intentionally managing that relationship? Are you Is there anything? Have you adapted? How you lead because of her approach to you? Or? Is it just kind of an innocent thing?
Henrik Cronqvist 26:54
Yeah, I would say, yeah, you always have to manage up, right, for sure. That's important. Making sure that your provost doesn't have any surprises. If something is if the train is about to get off the tracks, then you need to, you know, be upfront about that. Always walking into the one on one meetings and starting with, where are the fires, always starting with that I always leave the self congratulatory stuff until the end. That was the advice that I got from a very experienced University leader is that in your meetings with the provost, always go in talk about the fires first, because it can be very tempting to come in and say, Well, you know, we have a lot of great things going on, which we do, you know, that that people can learn from, you know, our social media or other channels. It's important to be upfront about where the fires are. Fortunately, we haven't had that many fires at this point in time. But, you know, knock on wood, but I think that's important. And
Dave 27:56
again, serve up a little ice cream as you're walking out the door. Yeah.
Henrik Cronqvist 28:00
Little bit of ice cream. I think you have to start with that. Yes. But you shouldn't start with the big buckets of ice cream, I think.
Dave 28:09
Good advice. Good advice.
Jim 28:11
You know, I think that they got the right guy in the right job. And you really have a great opportunity at Chapman and I congratulate you for what you've done. But more importantly, we're excited to see what you're going to do because Chapman is going to rise in the rankings quickly, given the thought processes that you've shared with us today. We really appreciate it. So thank you so much, Henrik for doing this. It's been great.
Henrik Cronqvist 28:37
I appreciate the opportunity very much. Thank you so much, guys. Continue to listen to your podcast with other Dean's and learn from them. And hopefully someone will pick up something from this discussion. That could be helpful for them as well.
Jim 28:51
I know they will.
Dave 28:52
I know they will too. Thank you for sharing.
Jim 28:54
Thanks. Great.
Dave 29:04
I really enjoyed that conversation. Jim. I I learned a lot. He's He's new in the role. But as you said, all that energy and I really like hearing his insight on on how he's implementing this crown jewel strategy.
Jim 29:18
It was really it was his idea. Yeah. When he listened to all of our podcasts, he said, I have something that's different than everybody else. Yeah. And then when he and I had lunch a couple of weeks ago, I said, You know what, you really do have something different. And he his energy is beyond. I mean, it is so good. And, and he's been in that job now for a year and a half. And he hasn't been sapped so and I think it was interesting, I was going to talk about I mean, he got into the provost, which I thought was great. I was gonna talk about the President that hired because that President had been on the job for 25 years and was recognized on the top university presidents in the country and right so that was a plus to him, but we didn't need to get to that because he got to the provost. So it's you It's really he's doing a superb job and, and I keep sending guys to him that are real aces. So which the USC is kind of shedding and I said, Hey, pick this guy up, pick this guy up, but he's getting them to come down at least do some consulting with him, which is great. So it's working out pretty well. Yeah.
Dave 30:18
I really appreciated his comments about his provost. Because so he has a provost who's maybe not a collaborator, but it's certainly willing to give him the space to build the program he wants to do. Yeah. And I'm sure I'm sure there's different flavors of relationships. But that one's a certainly a healthy one. And we probably ought to have a show on how to on this whole idea of managing it up. Because I know that in some cases, it's it's not a healthy relationship. Yeah,
Jim 30:55
you're right. You're right. But you know, the other thing we can do is have a have a show on a provost, talking about how they manage Dean's.
Dave 31:03
Yeah, and I know that's on an IRA to do this, too. Yeah. But Henrik was a great, great person to have on this show. And I know that our audience is gonna take a few jewels away, if not a little bit of ice cream, so
Jim 31:21
that was, yeah, that was good. It was really good.
Dave 31:23
Thank you for listening to this episode of Dean's Council. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Dean's Council was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts. For a catalogue of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com If you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback at Dean's council.com. And finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show