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Brian Barefoot President Babson College Wellesley, Massachusetts himself far from Wall Street as the president of Babson, even though he has never taught a single course in finance. He is part of a growing group of corporate leaders interested in the business of academia. "I met a historian who wanted to know more about the administrative side of the academic equation, so he got an MBA and became the business manager of a small school and is now the president of a university. What he loves about the university is not the academic side of it, but the challenges of running it like a business," says Babson, who views his own position similarly. "I like academia, too, but I enjoy a differ- ent aspect of it." The fact that more business schools have become true The Financier I was interested in getting the credentials," he says without apology. "I didn't learn anything, to tell you the truth. I was not by any reasonable definition a committed student. I got my MBA at night, and I did it as quickly as I could. I was much more interested in a career on Wall Street than in academics." But even he has to admit that this seems to be the right Ask Brian Barefoot, inaugurated last September as the new president of Babson College, if he ever thought he'd return to academia after 30 years on Wall Street, and his answer is immediate: "Not a chance in a million years." After all, Barefoot admits that his own motives for earning his MBA from Pace University in 1970 were less than scholarly. "I wasn't interested in the MBA to further my knowledge. businesses explains why he and others like him are where they are now, he adds. "Colleges and universities have got- ten bigger, and running them requires more business man- agement skills. If you start out in academia, you're a junior professor, associate professor, and then a full professor. Then you might become a dean. But you've never had profit-and- loss responsibilities, and you've never been trained to think long-term for an organization," he says. "You're trained to think of what you want a program to be, but not about what it costs to get it there." As president of Babson, Barefoot has three main goals. First, he plans to create a more integrated curriculum. Second, he hopes the school can change the way business defines entre- preneurship. Entrepreneurship can be about conceiving, pro- moting, and implementing good ideas throughout an organi- zation, not just about starting a business, he says. "Most peo- ple think of entrepreneurship and think of a startup company," Barefoot points out. "We're trying to get people to think entrepreneurially even within large corporations." Finally, Barefoot hopes that the management skills he has place and the right time for him to take Babson's helm. "Babson College is all about business and innovative approaches to education. These are the factors that have dif- ferentiated Babson for a long time," says Barefoot, who him- self is an alumnus of the college. "I really don't think anyone else would have hired me for this job. But at Babson, I know enough to make a difference." Barefoot's 30-year career in financial services includes tenures as an executive vice president at PaineWebber and senior managing director at Merrill Lynch & Co. He has served on the governing board and board of trustees at Babson College and has received its Cruickshank Alumni Leadership Award for his contributions. Now, Barefoot finds learned on Wall Street will help create a culture at Babson that's less averse to change, more willing to take risks. However, he realizes that such a transformation will not hap- pen overnight. "Academic institutions often place a large emphasis on process and not much emphasis on results. As a result, the decision-making process is slower, it's very consensus-driven, it's risk-averse. In fact, you couldn't pick an industry—if you want to consider education an industry—that is more at the opposite end of the spectrum from the world on Wall Street," says Barefoot. "I've learned, however, that you have to adapt to your environment if you're going to be successful. You must be willing to make compromises while you work on trying to change the culture. Presumably, that's why you were hired in BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2003 37