Dr Grant Cullen will assume the role of Dean of the School and Professor Dominic Gasbarro, Deputy Dean.

I am very pleased to inform you that, following the resignation of Professor Peter McKiernan, Dr Grant Cullen will assume the role of Dean of the School and Dominic Gasbarro, Deputy Dean, for an initial period of 6 months. I would like to take this opportunity to wish both Grant and Dominic well for their term of office and thank them for the willingness to serve the School and University.

Grant Cullen is Associate Professor in Finance in the School. He moved to Murdoch in 1994 having previously lectured in finance at Curtin University, following a career with BP as a Petroleum Geophysicist.  Grant studied for his BSc (physics) at the University of Western Australia, completed his Master of Business (finance) at Curtin University, and obtained his PhD (finance) from University College, Dublin.  He has teaching experience in a broad range of finance and banking subjects with a research interest in the field of managed funds.  In addition, Grant has undertaken a number of administrative roles in the school, including finance coordinator, and served on the school board and executive committee.

Dominic Gasbarro is the Associate Dean of Research for the School and Discipline Leader for Finance. Dominic has published in international journals, including the Journal of Banking and Finance, Financial Review, Journal of Financial Research and Pacific Basin Finance Journal. He has made presentations to professional and academic associations including the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), Australasian Finance and Banking (AFB), and at Accounting and Finance Association of Australian and New Zealand (AFAANZ) conferences. Dominic has taught units in finance and banking at Murdoch University and also lectured at Curtin University, University of Western Australia, University of Illinois and Colorado State University. He has a number of awards for teaching excellence.

Thank you to colleagues for their input into the Dean’s selection process. During my discussions, I met with almost all senior staff and received comments from several others, I was very impressed by the level of commitment by colleagues to both the School and the University. The School will remain intact and build on the many activities underway to improve capability and the key priorities of growing both domestic and international recruitment.

I wish to thank Peter McKiernan for his leadership of the School over the past three and half years. Peter was, on arrival, committed to a ‘new School’ for Murdoch and actively built the connections between Management and Governance. His achievements notably include this but he also was a key player in the new contract with Kaplan and the growth of TNE in Singapore, the design and development of SCRIPT, leading to its establishment on December 2 in Singapore, the commencement of the internationalisation of the PG course offerings and the development of off-shore activities of Executive Education.

While, as mentioned, the School of Management and Governance has load and revenue challenges as we face across the University, we have allocated funds for both domestic and international recruitment for 2016.  It is clear that there is a strong sense of cohesion and an appetite for change to see a stronger School of Management and Governance. The School with many great staff and the good will expressed by the School Executive was strong and purposeful so I remain optimistic that great things can be achieved.

Best wishes

Andrew Taggart