News

New Questrom Dean: Building a Brand

Susan Fournier applies marketing expertise to managing business school

Susan Fournier, a professor at BU for 13 years, became dean of the Questrom School of Business on August 27, 2018. The school’s first woman dean, Fournier is a leading international expert on brand marketing and is credited with pioneering the subfield that explores the relationships consumers form with brands, products, and organizations. She was formerly a marketing professor and Questrom Professor in Management, an endowed chair. Her latest research examines the challenges of celebrity branding based on her 20-year analysis of Martha Stewart’s brand.

Fournier succeeds Kenneth W. Freeman, Questrom’s dean since 2010. During his tenure, undergraduate student enrollment increased by nearly 30 percent and BU trustee Allen Questrom (Questrom’64, Hon.’15) and Kelli Questrom (Hon.’15) and their foundation made the $50 million gift that led to the renaming of the school in 2015. The school also transformed its programs to emphasize ethics and global citizenship and to better meet changing student and employer needs.

“I intend to further establish our reputation as a preeminent academic institution with a reputation for research that matters, teaching that inspires, and faculty and staff who care,” says Fournier. “We need strong partnerships with industry and organizations that can provide data and questions for research that impact practices, policy, and society, and also collaborations in the development of courses and projects that provide hands-on, experiential learning. I have a deep appreciation for the stakeholder perspective from having worked and lived on the other side.”

Fournier says she also wants to increase Questrom’s focus on new, targeted master’s degree programs in healthcare, social impact, and digital specialties, while expanding interdisciplinary engagements between departments and with other schools at BU.

“Questrom has already begun breaking down barriers between traditional academic disciplines that operate in outmoded silos in favor of interdisciplinary programming,” she says. “Eliminating those boundaries in hiring, curriculum, research, and other interfaces is the future of business education and perhaps education in general.”

According to Robert A. Brown, BU president, Fournier will lead the school at an important point in its history. “Susan assumes the role of the dean of the Questrom School of Business during an exciting time for the school, for business education, and the University,” says Brown. “I look forward to working with her to continue the journey of increasing the quality and impact of the school’s education and research programs.”

BU Today spoke with Fournier about her leadership style, the future of the MBA, and her plans for getting alums more involved with the school.

BU Today: What lessons from your research will you apply in your new role?

Fournier: Building a strong brand is the goal of any organization. Strong brands require awareness, differentiation, commitment, and loyalty. Forging relationships across stakeholders is at the heart of any strong brand. It’s the same thing when you are running a business school.

I have in-depth knowledge of the psychology and sociology of relationships, how they develop, how they fall apart, what kind of flavors they come in. The whole point of my research is to understand the value people get out of forging brand relationships, what role the brand, product, or organization has for people in their lives, and how building those relationships creates value for the firm. It’s not about selling a product; it’s about understanding the foundation of those products in people’s lives and introducing solutions that help them.

My knowledge of branding will also inform initiatives dedicated to increasing the equity of the Questrom brand. We will leverage our faculty, our programs, our institutes, our research, and our alumni and stakeholders to increase awareness and build resonance with our brand.

What are some of the trends in graduate business education that you’re watching and how is Questrom responding to them?

The market for graduate business degrees is complex. There are areas for growth and trends that do cause concern. On a national scale, companies are no longer subsidizing tuition 100 percent, or, in some cases, not at all. Many organizations have taken training in-house and the big consulting firms have entered the game. Online programming has increased dramatically in quantity and quality, allowing companies to keep their employees on-site. International colleges and university competitors are getting really strong and upping their academic game. Politics around H-1B visas are affecting enrollments.

All of this puts pressure on US enrollments in the graduate business program space. An MBA is still the only degree that gives you a broad perspective on business problems and immerses you in all the disciplines of business. Leaders need breadth. While applications for the full-time MBA continue their downward trend across the nation, we have been fortunate enough to grow applications to select MBA programs, such as the part-time MBA and executive MBA. This is a tremendous credit to the quality of our faculty and our programs.

What’s really grown is the specialty market. When any market grows, it’s eventually going to fragment. We’ve been focusing on three areas over any others: health, digital technology—which is anything related to data-driven online business platforms like Uber—and social impact/sustainability.

We selected these sector-based growth areas because they are critical to the economy, embedded in the Boston ecosystem, and areas where we have comparative faculty advantage. We have master’s programs tied to these sectors, and we are exploring more program growth tied to segments in these spaces.

For Questrom, it’s about being aware. There are market opportunities and unserved or underserved segments. We have the experience and the discipline to find these opportunities and offer solutions.

What’s the significance of being the first academic appointed as dean in 40 years?

Through my status as a practicing academic with over 25 years of experience, I have deep empathy for, and understanding of, the research and teaching functions that are fundamental to an academic research institution such as ours—in other words, I get it. With all of the foundations we’ve been laying in terms of faculty hires, institutes, and program infrastructures, Questrom is at a stage of its development where an academic perspective can yield substantial value. Different times call for different leaders, and at this moment in time, the opinion of the trustees and University leadership is that Questrom can benefit significantly from a dean with academic experience. I’m honored to be the one to take on this new role.

How would you describe your leadership style?

My leadership style is threefold: relational, collaborative, and respectful. The first is self-explanatory: I study relationships, my area is brand relationships, and I brought relationship thinking to the world of branding.

I’ve also worked as senior associate dean for faculty and research, and that is a role that’s not always popular and requires you to make tough decisions. You have to build relationships so people can trust you.

Secondly, I’m collaborative; I seek to empower whoever works with me. I’m not going to pretend to be the one person in the room who knows it all. I know it takes a village to get something done.

Lastly, my leadership style is founded on the principle of respect. At the foundation of everything I do is the drive to create a healthy Questrom culture where we all work together in a culture of mutual respect.

What roles would you like alums to play in Questrom?

Alumni are critical stakeholders in our academic and research mission. They graduate and go out and change the world. They become our brand ambassadors. They can come back into the classroom, enhance our learning experiences, and provide connections for internships, mentorships, or job placements. They provide data for projects in hands-on classes.

Alums can also play a role as advisors as we develop new programs. They’re living today’s business issues and can offer a broader perspective. You can bring them to the classroom, on panels, and as mentors. Many are also accomplished businesspeople who can bring their wisdom, knowledge, and decision-making skills to bear on Questrom’s problems. I look forward to these engagements.

Will you bring a different perspective as Questrom’s first female dean?

I’m ecstatic, humbled, and honored to be Questrom’s first female dean. I’ve been lucky in that gender hasn’t been a defining element for me personally or for my leadership style, but I recognize that for a lot of women that’s not the case, especially in the current #MeToo era. For them, and for all women in business, I’m happy that I’m in this role and ready to do everything I can to help on that front. But I will say one thing: I look forward to a time when gender is not a question we need to probe. I’d rather be sought out as an outstanding dean, not a woman dean.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Authors, BU staff. Photos by Dan Watkins.

The Voice of BU for Almost Half a Century

Marie Gannon has worked BU’s switchboard since the year Nixon resigned

Marie Gannon has been working BU’s switchboard for four and a half decades. Over the years she’s seen a lot of changes, including the arrival of computers and cell phones. She says she loves her job and has no plans to retire…yet. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi.

It’s the first week of school and BU’s switchboard number, 617-353-2000, is lighting up in the basement of 111 Cummington Mall. An exasperated parent calls complaining about being unable to reach anyone in Financial Aid. Minutes later, it’s another parent, asking if she can march with her child during the parade leading to the annual Matriculation ceremony. A student calls to say that his flight to BU has been delayed and he needs to find out if he can move into his dorm after the 5 pm cutoff. And then there’s the parent calling to say she’s promised to stock her son’s fridge, but doesn’t know where to buy groceries.

Through it all, BU Call Center senior telephone operator Marie Gannon remains unflappable. She calmly assures the first caller that Financial Aid is deluged with calls this time of the year, and she stays on the line until he’s reached the office. She connects the second caller to the Dean of Students office, where the mother finds out that sorry, the parade is for students only. Gannon puts the harried student whose flight is delayed through to the South Campus Residence Life office. And for the last caller, she suggests the Shaw’s supermarket near West Campus. Over the next eight hours, she’ll field approximately 100 such calls.

Watching Gannon work from her cubicle is a little like studying a maestro conduct an orchestra. She has so many department and office phone numbers memorized that she rarely needs to consult her computer. And her institutional memory is phenomenal—she instinctively knows who best to reach out to and where to send a caller.

No wonder. She’s been working BU’s switchboard since 1973—a year when Steve Jobs, who would found Apple a decade later, was working for a small video game company called Atari.

“I call Marie the human directory,” says Call Center manager Roberta Contant, Gannon’s boss. “You can ask her for a department number and she’ll give it to you without even having to look it up. We had a parent who was lost trying to get to BU and Marie stayed on the phone with her and gave her directions and got her right where she needed to go. This woman asked Marie if she had a camera in her car, because Marie was telling her what she was going to see next.”

Then and now

Gannon was just 21 and working at a sub shop in South Boston when one of her regulars, Dan Mullen, came in one day to tell her he was leaving his job at the BU switchboard. He urged her to apply and said he’d recommend her. Four weeks later, she had the job.

When she started, the switchboard was at 771 Comm Ave (now the Citizens Bank in the George Sherman Union), and it operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There were four full-time operators, aided by a team of work-study students, handling as many as 80,000 calls a month. And at the time (no computers, no cell phones), everything had to be done manually.

“We had a little book and we kept phone numbers for the departments,” Gannon recalls. “We had a paper printout of faculty and staff that was updated every summer. And the student directory was on microfilm. It took only a few seconds, but it was noisy.”

The campus looked a lot different, too. “There was a gas station where Questrom now is, and there was a big nightclub where the Barnes & Noble at BU is. And before they built a Burger King next to Sargent College, now a parking lot, there was a restaurant that looked like a spaceship,” Gannon says with a laugh. “I wish I had taken a picture of that place.”

What does it takes to be a good telephone operator? Well, Gannon says, you have to be able to remember phone numbers, but you also have to be a good listener. “Every call is different. I can almost always tell what’s going on with the person as soon as I answer the phone,” she says. “I can just tell by the person’s voice what kind of a call they are.”

Regardless of the caller, she is unfailingly patient and polite. Parents will call, worried about their homesick son or daughter, unsure who to reach out to. Gannon offers a sympathetic ear and might suggest they contact Residence Life or Behavioral Medicine. Sometimes a student calls saying they need help. After 45 years, she can reel off a list of available resources.

Her job requires the skills of a good hotel concierge. Students will call when their parents are coming into town and ask for advice on where to take them for a meal. Chinese, Italian, seafood, she knows where to send them. Others call asking where they can buy sheets and towels or how far the campus is from Logan Airport and how much a cab will cost. (Gannon warns that taxis are expensive and offers to give them directions for taking the MBTA to save money). One time, a student called because she wanted to cook a corned beef for her parents. It turned out that Gannon had a recipe—she knew it by heart—and walked the girl through it, step by step.

She remembers a time before students had a weather app at their fingertips and would call up thinking the switchboard was the weather service. “They’d want to know what the weather was going to be like that day, and I’d say, ‘Well, it’s raining out, in case you haven’t pulled your shade up or gotten out of bed yet.’ I’d tell them they’d better put on a raincoat and boots because it’s raining pretty heavy.”

And for years, at the beginning of the school year, one or two freshmen would call the switchboard and say they’d like to order room service. Gannon would ask, “Are you a freshman?” When they’d say yes, she’d explain that they’d had a prank played on them.

Smiles—and tears

There are memories, too, of more sobering events. Gannon recalls working through the night with colleagues on 9/11 to make sure anxious parents could connect with their kids and to put students seeking help in touch with counselors.

A lot has changed in the decades since she started at BU. The arrival of cell phones dramatically reduced the number of calls going through the switchboard. Today, she’s one of only two full-time operators (the other is Sonya Richburg). And the Call Center is no longer staffed 24/7. An automated system directs callers after 5 pm and on weekends.

What she cherishes most, Gannon says, are the friendships she’s made. For years, she’d put calls through from Steve Drenga, a former library technician at Mugar Memorial Library. They’d never met, but one day while standing in line in the cafeteria, she recognized his voice and introduced herself. The two became quick friends and would often meet for morning coffee with other friends at the long-gone Mal’s Diner on Comm Ave. The late Freda Rebelsky, a College of Arts & Sciences professor emerita of psychology, used to bring plates of cookies or chocolates to the switchboard staff every Christmas before she retired.

But one of Gannon’s favorite people was Michael Fleming, also a CAS professor of psychology, who died in 2013. Fleming would often try to disguise his voice when he’d call. Gannon says she always knew it was him. The two developed a close phone friendship. He stopped by the switchboard one day to meet the operators, but Gannon was out. They never did meet in person, but she went to his memorial service at Marsh Chapel.

Gannon lives in Winthrop with her husband, and when she’s not at work, likes to read, paint, and do ceramics. And while she’s not sure she’ll make it to her 50th anniversary, she says she has no plans to retire…yet. She still loves her job.

“You get different people on the phone every day,” she says. “It’s not the same thing every day. You’re always talking to new people.”

Author, John O’Rourke can be reached at orourkej@bu.edu.

Making News: Alum Builds Washington News Bureau

C.D. “Budd” Ruffin,the District 2 commissioner from rural Choctaw County, Ala., is a big guy—defensive-lineman big—and he sweats a bit as he stands in the grand marble rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building in his sport coat and scally cap. Ruffin came to Capitol Hill to lobby Alabama’s congressional delegation to fund workforce development, infrastructure, and Narcan kits for police and emergency workers fighting the opioid epidemic. Veteran D.C. broadcast journalist Jacqueline Policastro turns on her camera and helps Ruffin adjust the microphone clipped to his lapel.

“We want to make sure the opioid epidemic does not strangle our small communities, and our first responders should be equipped with anything that will help them do their job better,” Ruffin tells Policastro (COM’06). Ruffin’s lobbying efforts might easily go unnoticed by people back home. CNN and the New York Times aren’t interested, and local media in Alabama no longer have the resources to report from Washington, if they ever did. But a clip—of Ruffin talking about road funding, no less—makes the evening news on WTOK-TV in Meridian, Miss., a station watched by many of Ruffin’s constituents just across the state line.

Read more

Author, Joel Brown can be reached at jbnbpt@bu.edu.