One of several academic leadership positions at Texas A&M has been filled.
The new dean at the Mays Business School is the chairman of the college’s accounting department.
Dr. Nate Sharp has been at A&M since 2007.
President Katherine Banks told the faculty senate in November that she plans to begin searches for a permanent provost and a dean of the college of architecture next spring. And next spring will be an assessment of the selection process for the dean of A&M’s new college of arts and sciences. Additionally, search committees have been established for the next deans of A&M’s colleges of engineering and nursing.
News release from Texas A&M:
Dr. Nate Y. Sharp has been named dean of the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, effective Feb. 1, 2023, where he holds the Nelson D. Durst Endowed Chair in Accounting.
Texas A&M President M. Katherine Banks said Sharp is committed to advancing the mission and goals of Texas A&M.
“Nate is known as a unifier and team builder. He not only embraces the core values, he also lives them,” she said. “I am absolutely confident he will position the Mays School to be at the pinnacle of excellence where it belongs.”
Wayne Roberts, retired president and CEO of tech company Abrigo, served as a member of the search advisory committee representing the Mays Dean’s Advisory Board.
“The Mays dean search effort was a comprehensive, thorough and exhaustive process spanning nearly nine months. We cast the net far and wide to find to best candidates to lead Mays to become the preeminent public business school in the nation. As a committee, we presented three outstanding finalists with diverse backgrounds, experiences and visions for what Mays could become and we supported the selection of any of them,” said Roberts, who graduated from Texas A&M in 1985 with a business administration degree before earning an MBA. “President Banks has made a bold and transformational decision by selecting Nate Sharp as our next dean. He is a rising star with high potential and has excelled in every role during his tenure at Mays. Dean Sharp has a compelling vision for what we can become, and I believe he will take us from good to great. He has my enthusiastic support, and I cannot wait to see what we will accomplish under his leadership.”
Sharp reacted to his new role. “It is a tremendous honor to be named dean of Mays Business School,” he said. “I am humbled by the opportunity to serve in this role and, in turn, to give back to a school and a university that have given me so much. I sincerely appreciate the support of Chancellor Sharp and President Banks. To have the confidence of these two visionary leaders means a great deal to me, and I am thrilled to work together with them and with the incredible faculty, staff and students of Mays Business School to achieve our goal of preeminence.”
Sharp’s areas of research expertise include corporate financial reporting, financial analysis, financial journalism and financial misconduct. His research is published in leading scholarly journals and has received multiple best-paper awards, including the 2021 Distinguished Contributions to the Accounting Literature Award from the American Accounting Association.
He received bachelor’s (cum laude) and master’s degrees in accounting from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.
His research has been discussed extensively in financial media, including in stories published in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNBC and the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. He was named a Texas A&M University Presidential Impact Fellow in 2018 and became department head in 2020. He previously served from 2016-2020 as Ph.D. program coordinator in the James Benjamin Department of Accounting.
Sharp is an award-winning teacher who has taught classes to undergraduate and graduate students at Texas A&M. He was the recipient of the 2018 David and Denise Baggett Teaching Award, the 2015 Association of Former Students Distinguished Teaching Award, the 2012 Ernst & Young Teaching Excellence Award and a 2010 Texas A&M University System Teaching Excellence Award. He was recognized as the 2012-13 Texas A&M University Center for Teaching Excellence Montague Scholar in the Mays Business School and a 2009 Texas A&M University Fish Camp Namesake.
Sharp and his wife, Holly, are the proud parents of five children.