Campbell: Perfect match for Haas School

Tom Campbell

05 June 2002 |

As a five-time congressman for the Silicon Valley and a Stanford law professor known for his leadership abilities, Tom Campbell fits the bill at Haas School of Business.
Campbell, 49, has been a law professor at Stanford University since 1983. He was elected five times to represent the Silicon Valley area of California in Congress. Among his legislative achievements as congressman, he authored the 1998 Food Bank Relief Act and the 2000 Peace Corps Reauthorization Act.

During a two-year term in the early 1980s as a California state senator, the Sacramento-based “California Journal” rated him the most ethical state senator, the best overall senator and the state Senate’s best problem-solver.

Campbell will join Berkeley on Aug. 19, after touring and lecturing in Africa over the summer.

“The chance to be dean at such a prestigious business school is a tremendous honor and opportunity,” he says. “That it is at a public university enables me to combine both public service and education: the two career paths my life has followed. My wife [Susanne Campbell of the campus’s Institute of Management, Innovation & Organization] already is in the Berkeley family, so this makes it unanimous.”

As dean, Campbell will lead a school that annually enrolls more than 1,600 students in its undergraduate and graduate academic programs, as well as hundreds of senior managers in a series of non-degree executive development programs.

Colleagues in business laud his talents.

“Tom Campbell is a world-class leader, intellectually curious, a fantastic fundraiser and an outstanding communicator.” says Silicon Valley CEO Arun Sarin, a 1978 Haas grad. “With his business, legal and political experience,… he brings something unique to the business school.” Sarin also calls Campbell a “fantastic motivator.”

“Tom Campbell fits the Haas School’s mission perfectly, in the breadth of his experience and in his perspective,” said Chancellor Berdahl. “He is a legal scholar who holds a PhD in economics, is extraordinarily knowledgeable about business issues, is dedicated to public service and is an educator of considerable achievement.”

Campbell will fill the vacancy left by Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who earlier this year became dean of the London Business School.