John J. Fernandes has been named AACSB’s chief executive officer and will assume his new accountabilities Monday, April 3. Robert L. Taylor, AACSB president, announced the selection to members and staff at the end of January. 

Fernandes comes to AACSB from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), in Orlando, Fla., where he served for seven years, most recently as executive vice president and chief operating officer. IIA is an international association of professional internal auditors, with 72,000 members in more than 100 countries.

"I believe that John sees great opportunity for AACSB and its strategic directions and that he understands how he can maximize the talents of the staff in making that vision a reality," said Taylor, who is business dean at the University of Louisville. "John has taken a careful look at where AACSB is on each of its strategic initiatives. His assessment is right on target with what I see and what the board sees. We are looking for him to assess where the staff needs to be bolstered or increased, where we need to focus those efforts to keep us on track and help us meet all of our targets. We are looking forward to his kind of strong leadership for the staff and his kind of vision, confidence and commitment for the board."

Fernandes was chosen unanimously from among more than 70 applicants in the areas of education, industry and the not-for-profit sector to be the association’s first senior staff person to have the title of CEO. The search committee, chaired by Larry Penley, AACSB vice president-president elect, and comprised of selected members of the board of directors as well as other representatives of AACSB’s membership, was assisted in the seven-month process by the firm of Spencer Stuart.

"We looked very broadly at candidates who already were leaders in other associations," Penley said. "We looked at executives from the business world, we looked at current and former deans. We found candidates from every sector who interested us. But John especially impressed the search committee because he not only understands how to deal with volunteers, like all of us who are deans of business schools, but he also knows how to manage a permanent, full-time staff in a way that will motivate that staff and really bring their capabilities to bear on the challenges of management education at this time." Penley is business dean at Arizona State University.

Of the new role he is taking on, Fernandes said, "I felt it was an unparalleled opportunity to be part of an educational renaissance. I think we are going very strongly toward the globalization of accreditation services, which poses challenges and potential rewards. I think the proliferation of cyber education and AACSB’s role as an accreditor and as a service provider in professional development is boundless."

Fernandes expressed a strong opinion about the purpose of a professional association. "The role of the association is not to just be responsive but to be proactive in understanding what the members’ needs are and serving them ahead of time," he said. "One of the strengths that AACSB has is being able to benchmark and leverage the awareness that it has of different best practices, those services that are well designed and well functioning within different business schools, and spreading those practices to other schools. It is a real power and it can tend to elevate the performance of management education. I think we have to maximize that."

Fernandes also sees technology as a major area of development for AACSB. "I know some will say that there is quite a bit of time that will elapse before electronic education is a critical delivery method in schools of higher education," he said. "I don’t think we can think in a 10- and 15-year mode. I think we have to think in the 30- and 40- and 50-year mode. I think we always have to be thinking forward. While we can’t be precise, we at least have to adapt to the changes in practices of the delivery of education. The good news about technology is that it tends to facilitate innovation. That is a strong benefit. While it is a bit of a threat to AACSB from its traditional platforms and its members, it also provides a significant opportunity for innovation."

In the highly competitive environment of management education, Fernandes sees globalization as one of the biggest challenges AACSB faces. "With the advent of electronic delivery, and with the clear desire on both the suppliers’ and the purchasers’ side for a global marketplace, it offers a lot of potential. It is not a matter of whether we go global, it is how and how quickly."

All of Fernandes’ accountabilities with the auditors’ organization involved aspects of association management and professional development. He oversaw the IIA Learning Center, which included certifications, conferences, educational products, meeting planning, periodicals and seminar operations. He also designed and implemented strategic plans for the organization that resulted in a nearly 150 percent increase in seminars and conference profits in two years and doubling the number of Certified Internal Auditor candidates in three years. Fernandes also served as director of certification and professional development, director of educational services and manager of academic relations.

"With the board having adopted the policy governance model last year, we now can execute that model from the staff perspective," Taylor said. "The board is going to focus on policy relative to the strategic directions and has committed itself to a long-range plan, but we are bringing someone in to be chief executive who can, with the staff, do all of the activities necessary to accomplish the strategic plan. With the exception of accreditation, where it is really a volunteer-driven process, we are looking for John to help us accomplish the goals through the talents and hard work of the staff."

Both Taylor and Penley said that the search committee had been impressed with the new CEO’s ability to communicate and get along easily with people. "He makes everyone around him very comfortable," Penley said.

Another characteristic of Fernandes that both deans noted is his leadership. "He has taken another association and improved substantially the capability of that association to respond to its constituency, to have a revenue base that has made it successful, and to really provide creative direction to that association," Penley said. "I believe that John can bring those same talents to AACSB. He has a fresh perspective on higher education, but it is well-schooled. He is insightful with regard to our needs and he is knowledgeable about the way in which technology, globalization and other critical variables are affecting management education at this stage. We are very lucky to have someone with that kind of perspective to be the leader of AACSB."

The new CEO, a certified internal auditor and certified fraud examiner, has 25 years of experience in domestic and international internal auditing and audit management in the energy, manufacturing and public transit industries.

For seven years, he has served on the board of directors of the Bons Secours Health System, Inc., a $1.7 billion acute and long-term care health system with operations in nine states. He is in the second of a three-year term as chairman of the board’s audit committee.

Prior to his work at IIA, Fernandes served for three years as vice president and general auditor for the New York City Transit Authority, one of the world’s largest public transit operations, with an annual budget exceeding $5 billion.

Fernandes has a BSBA from Babson College, where he majored in both accounting and communications. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Houston. He also has completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and holds a certification in control self-assessment (CCSA).

The new CEO replaces William K. Laidlaw, Jr., who left AACSB last summer, after almost 25 years as executive vice president, to complete his E.D.M. degree at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Laidlaw took a position, January 1, as associate dean for executive education and professor for the practice of management at Weatherhead.

Fernandes will complete his work at IIA on March 3 and is scheduled to attend AACSB’s board of directors meeting in March.

He will reside in St. Louis with his wife and three-month old son. Fernandes also has three grown children who live elsewhere.

"We were very much tied to Central Florida," Fernandes said. "We were entrenched there. But the warmth and graciousness of the staff, and the professionalism of the leadership, their flexibility in dealing with me, were superb. It almost made us feel as though we were going from one family to another, as opposed to leaving family that we had grown to love and will miss dearly."