Robert F. Bruner is University Professor at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration, and Dean Emeritus of the

Darden School of Business The Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration (branded as the Darden School of Business) is the graduate business school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. The school offers ...

. He was the eighth dean of Darden and has been a faculty member there since 1982. He teaches and conducts research in

finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

at the University of Virginia and has won numerous teaching awards. Bruner has led innovation in management education at Darden and globally. In 2011, Bruner led a global task force of Deans for the

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American professional and accreditation organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to busines ...

. The task force produced a comprehensive review of global management education. The resulting book-length report, ''The Globalization of Management Education'', urged educational leaders to rise to the challenges of

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

. Bruner has guided two curriculum design efforts at Darden in which he emphasized Darden's approach: instruction integrated across fields, an enterprise point of view of the leader and general manager, and high-engagement discussion. He has taught students in the

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

and MBA for Executives formats, and doctoral students. He has instructed practitioners in executive education courses around the world and is co-author of Case Studies in Finance, now in its sixth edition. Bruner has advanced Darden and the field of management education in areas including

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...

, globalization and

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

. Prior to his appointment as dean in August 2005, Bruner served as the founding executive director of Darden's Batten Institute, which focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation. There, he expanded Darden's Business Incubator, established a Fellows Program, promoted research, and encouraged the creation of new courses, including his “Patents and Corporate Valuation” course. As a financial economist, Bruner is best known for his research on

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

corporate finance Corporate finance is an area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of businesses, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analy ...

and

financial panic A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and ma ...

s. His books include ''Deals from Hell'', ''Applied Mergers and Acquisitions'' and ''The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm''. The last title, co-authored with Sean D.Carr, was published in 2007 and attracted attention for its discussion of the underpinnings of financial crises. Born in Chicago, Bruner received a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1971 and the MBA and DBA degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1974 and 1982, respectively. Bruner served as a loan officer and investment analyst for First Chicago Corporation from 1974 to 1977. He served as a visiting professor at

INSEAD INSEAD ( ; French: ''Institut européen d'administration des affaires'') is a non-profit business school with locations in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, UAE) and North America (San Francisco, USA ...

IESE IESE Business School is the Catholic graduate business school of the University of Navarra. It was established in Barcelona in 1958 by Opus Dei. From 1963, in collaboration with Harvard Business School, it offers a two-year Master of Business Adm ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

business schools. Bruner and his wife, Bobbie, have two sons. In 2011, CNNMoney/Fortune named him “Dean of the Year.” Bruner is also a prolific writer of case studies in Management, and has featured among the top 40 case authors consistently, since the list was first published in 2016 by The Case Centre. Bruner ranked 13th In 2018/19, ninth in 2017/18, seventh in 2016/17 and 2015/16.

References

External links

Robert Bruner's Faculty Page at Darden School of BusinessRobert Bruner's Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruner, Robert Harvard Business School alumni Yale University alumni University of Virginia faculty Living people Business school deans Year of birth missing (living people) Bestselling case authors American university and college faculty deans