Baruch College appointed Bruce Weber to become the next Willem Kooyker Dean of the Larry Zicklin School of Business.

In a March 9 email from Baruch Provost Linda Essig, the college announced Weber’s appointment.

“Dr. Weber brings a collaborative and strategic approach to Baruch, with over 30 years of higher education experience including as a faculty member at Baruch College,” Essig wrote. 

As the new dean, Weber will report to the provost and serve the Zicklin School as its chief academic and administrative officer.

Additionally, he will oversee the business school’s operational direction, including finances and strategy. He will also be a member of Baruch President S. David Wu’s cabinet and work with senior administration members on the college’s operations.

Weber currently serves as a dean and a professor at the Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware, where he has worked for 12 years. He was appointed to the deanship on May 2, 2011, and assumed the role on Aug. 15 of the same year, according to a press release. 

In 2016, Weber was appointed to the advisory council of the university’s collaboration with the SWIFT Institute. The council is composed of leading academics and professionals in the financial services industry.

Prior to his time at the University of Delaware, Weber was a professor of management science and operations at the London Business School from 2002 to 2011. According to an article by the Financial Times, he served as the founding chair of the management science and operations subject area at the school, which is part of the University of London.

He was also a visiting faculty member at the business school from 1991 to 1992.

Before returning to the London Business School, from 1999 to 2002, Weber was an associate professor at the Zicklin School. He is also the founding director of the college’s Subotnick Financial Services Center, which allows students to advance their education in the markets through access to trading software.

During his tenure, Weber notably supervised the center in the months following the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Subotnick Center’s Wasserman Trading Floor, which is meant to simulate how a trading floor functions for students, was turned into the real deal by the now defunct firm Gruntal & Co., an investment banking and brokerage firm, and Baruch alumnus Jeffrey Baulm, who was president of the now-defunct financial services company Refco.

The devastated condition of Wall Street led to traders turning to alternative measures and reaching out to Baruch. Weber organized the center to function for professional traders. 

“We had to scramble,” Weber said, according to an article published by the New York Post on Sept. 30, 2001. “Somehow we got 20 extra phone lines for her. Traders can’t function without their phones. Also, we had to get permission to turn this place from a simulated trading environment to an actual trading room.”

From 1992 to 1998, he served as an assistant professor at the Department of Information Systems at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He worked as an analyst at the Management Analysis Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1984 to 1986. Weber’s consultation has been sought by firms, including Nasdaq Inc. and the London Stock Exchange.

Weber received a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1984. He then earned a doctorate of decision sciences from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.

Essig’s announcement of Weber’s appointment also included a formal note to Paquita Davis-Friday, who will continue as the interim dean until June 30.

“I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to Paquita Davis-Friday for serving as Interim Dean since January this year,” the provost wrote in her email.

Davis-Friday assumed the interim position following H. Fenwick Huss’ retirement from the role on Dec. 31, 2022. Huss served as the inaugural Kooyker dean for eight and a half years. The position was endowed by and named after a Baruch alumnus who died in November 2022.

Weber would step into the position on July 17, but final approval from the CUNY Board of Trustees is still pending.