Dezsö J. Horváth, CM*
Dezsö J. Horváth is Dean Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1977. Dr. Horváth is an electrical engineer and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Licentiate and PhD degrees in Management from Sweden. Following an early career in research and development with the Swedish multinational ASEA (now ABB), he was appointed to increasingly senior academic positions at Swedish universities before joining York. In addition to publishing books and articles on strategic management and international business, he has been engaged by major corporations and governments as a consultant in these fields.
On becoming Dean in 1988, Dr. Horváth worked with internal and external stakeholders to position Schulich as Canada’s Transnational Business School™. In addition to operating the Sino-Canadian Joint Center for Executive Education at Beihang University campus in Beijing, China, Schulich has satellite centres in Mumbai, India; Beijing, China; Seoul, South Korea; Mexico City, Mexico; and São Paulo, Brazil. The School’s many strategic partnerships around the world include academic exchange agreements with more than 80 leading international business schools in close to 40 countries. In 2010 Schulich became the first leading international business school from outside India to deliver an MBA degree in that country, and in 2014 opened a new campus in Hyderabad, India.
Under Dr. Horváth’s leadership, Schulich has risen steadily in global rankings. Schulich’s MBA program is ranked #2 in the world by Corporate Knights and among the world’s leading MBA programs by The Economist, Forbes and CNN Expansión. The Kellogg-Schulich EMBA program is ranked #8 in the world by The Economist, #4 in the world by QS Global EMBA, and #1 in Canada by The Economist and QS.
In addition to being a faculty member at York University, Dean Horváth is currently a Director of Inscape Corporation (2003-); UBS Bank (Canada) (2009-); Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) (2009-) and Toronto Centre for Global Leadership in Financial Supervision (1998-). He is on the International Advisory Council of the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University (2007-), and the Advisory Boards of the St. Petersburg University School of Management (1996-); Fundação Dom Cabral (2009-); Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year Award program (co-sponsored by Caldwell Partners, the National Post and BNN Television Network) (1992-); and the QS World University Rankings (2017-). He is a Co-Founder of The Czech Management Centre, Prague, The Czech Republic (1990), and of the International Management Centre, Hungary (now part of the Central European University in Budapest) (1989). He is a former Director of numerous companies, including Samuel, Son & Co. Limited (2007-2018), Westport Innovations Inc. (2001-2016), Dofasco Inc. (1995-2006) and Credit Suisse First Boston Canada (1994-1999). In 1995, he was appointed as a Fellow of the World Economic Forum (1995-2005).
In 2004, Dr. Horváth was named Dean of the Year by the Academy of International Business (AIB), the world’s leading association of scholars in the field of international business. This award is given in recognition of “outstanding leadership in various aspects of internationalization, including programs, research and curriculum development, and outreach.” In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada for his academic leadership and sustained commitment to business education. In 2012, he received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his achievements and significant contributions to Canada. In 2014, he was selected by The Toronto Star as one of the 180 most important people, past and present, who helped shape the City of Toronto since its founding.
*Member of the Order of Canada (CM)