Dean Paul Almeida
Dean and William R. Berkley Chair at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business
Paul Almeida is dean and William R. Berkley Chair at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where he champions a community of belonging and collaboration that focuses on business as a force to serve the common good. A member of the Georgetown community for more than 25 years, Almeida has served Georgetown McDonough in a number of leadership positions, including most recently as deputy dean for executive education and innovation. He also serves as professor of strategy and international business.
During his tenure as dean, Almeida has focused on leveraging the school’s greatest strengths — its location in the global capital city of Washington, D.C., its ability to create interdisciplinary programs in collaboration with Georgetown’s other renowned schools, and the university’s rich Jesuit tradition and values. He has overseen the growth of degree programs with the launch of the ambitious Dikran Izmirlian Program in Business and Global Affairs (a joint program with the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown’s first joint undergraduate degree), the M.S. in Management, an online M.S. in Business Analytics, and the M.S. in Environment and Sustainability Management (a joint program with Georgetown’s Earth Commons and the Graduate School). He also has created initiatives focused on the future including AI, Analytics, and the Future of Work and the Business of Sustainability, leveraging the ability of business to partner across academic areas to address the world’s most complex issues. Additionally, he appointed the school’s first Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and launched numerous diversity related initiatives.
Almeida’s research focuses on innovation, knowledge management, alliances, and informal collaborations across organizations and countries. He is interested in understanding how knowledge builds across people and organizations and how this affects performance. He has published in, and served on, the editorial boards of several leading journals. Almeida also previously was chair of the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management. He has received Georgetown’s Faculty Research Award and the Dean’s Service Award, as well as the Academy of Management’s (International Business) Outstanding Educator Award.
Almeida has taught students at all levels at Georgetown McDonough in the areas of strategy, international business, technology, and knowledge management. He has won the Joseph LeMoine Award for Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, Best Professor Award for Executive Programs at Georgetown University, and is a seven-time winner of the Best Professor Award for Georgetown’s Executive MBA program.
As deputy dean, Almeida oversaw the McDonough School’s Innovation Initiative, which he continues to manage directly as dean. The initiative’s first priorities were to more deeply integrate Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit values into the school, expand technology-enhanced learning, leverage the school’s location in Washington, D.C., and increase organizational excellence.
As senior associate dean, Almeida led the administrative and academic components of six executive education degree programs and more than 25 executive custom programs in as many as 30 countries, with over 1,000 students per year. The Financial Times continues to rank the school’s Executive MBA and Custom Executive Education programs among the best in the world.
Almeida has conducted executive education and corporate seminars with over 75 organizations, including Microsoft, Gucci, Rolls Royce, IBM, Bechtel, Nextel, Sprint, Samsung, ARAMARK, AREVA, ENI, the World Bank, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Public Radio, OPIC, the Department of Agriculture, FDIC, Federal Election Commission, Department of Commerce, and Social Security Administration.
Almeida received a Ph.D. in international business and strategy and an M.A. in applied economics and managerial science from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a PGDM (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, and a B.E. in electrical engineering from the University of Poona, India. He and his wife also are the parents of two Georgetown graduates.