Dean's Office - Darden Leadership - About

Scott C. Beardsley

University of Virginia Darden School of Business Dean and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration

Scott C. Beardsley is serving a record third term through 2028 as ninth dean of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a chaired professor in Strategy, Ethics and Entrepreneurship. An experienced CEO, board chair/director and executive, he serves as CEO of the financially self-sufficient UVA Darden enterprise (Foundation and School) and works with top UVA leadership on University priorities.

An inspirational, optimistic and global innovator, builder, strategist and talent developer, Beardsley has lifted Darden to new heights:

• Achieving historic levels of student success and academic excellence;
• Hiring a new generation of faculty while retaining #1 faculty rankings;
• Delivering Darden and capital projects on budget every year; and
• Elevating Darden to top rankings in CSR/sustainability.

As Darden's chief fundraiser since 2015, he has helped raise a record $632 million in total impact, including historic eight- and nine-figure gifts, bringing endowment assets to ~$1 billion. During his tenure, Darden has achieved record rankings:

• No. 1 Overall (Princeton Review composite)
• No. 1 Global Public MBA (Financial Times)
• No. 1 Public MBA (U.S. News & World Report, Poets & Quants, Bloomberg Businessweek)
• No. 1 Faculty (Princeton Review, Economist)
• No. 1 Educational Experience (Economist, seven times)
• No. 1 General Management (Financial Times, four times) 
• No. 2 Overall Global (The Economist)
• No. 3 Overall (Bloomberg Businessweek)

He developed and chairs UVA’s first AI institute and lifelong learning institute, is catalyzing AI in healthcare with UVA Health, and served on pan-UVA task forces on athletics and the 2017 riot. P&Q named Beardsley 2020 “Dean of the Year” for his accomplishments and compassionate approach to the pandemic.

He secured UVA board approval for a new masterplan and led, from vision to completion: the opening of UVA Darden DC Metro, a campus enabling new Executive and Part-Time MBA and MSBA programs; a $150 million Darden hotel and conference center, arboretum and botanical gardens; and an alumni hall. Since 2015, Darden has doubled resources (enrollment, Exec Education, gifts) and is building residential housing.

Throughout his career, Beardsley has successfully helped complex and global large organizations thrive in the face of technology and strategic discontinuity. He has helped transform and deliver billions in impact (i.e., up to $200 billion) for leading public and private sector educational, healthcare, professional services and technology institutions.

At McKinsey Belgium until 2015, he was among the fastest ever to rise to senior partner, elected to McKinsey’s global board (oversight of $8+ billion), and a client-serving senior partner to global leaders. He held some of the firm’s most senior roles: strategy practice leader; leader of all global talent learning and leadership development; co-chair of the global committees that elect partners and senior partners; and board leader to large global research budgets (~$300+ million). An electrical engineer, he worked in semiconductors at AMD and Analog Devices, and as a physics TA at Tufts.

One of McKinsey’s most prolific global thought leaders, Beardsley wrote about the rise of nontraditional leaders in academia in his 2017 book, Higher Calling (UVA Press). He was an editor of MIT Sloan Management Review, has published widely in Stanford Innovation Review, McKinsey Quarterly and Wall Street Journal, and presented at Davos, Concordia, FT and OECD. An expert in strategy, stakeholder management, regulation and leadership development, he researches and teaches maximizing human potential, CEO leadership, and technology/AI ethics and regulation.

Beardsley holds a doctorate in Higher Education Management with distinction from University of Pennsylvania, which awarded him the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award. He earned an MBA from MIT with high faculty honors as Henry S. Dupont III Scholar and Sloan Management Review Scholar, and a B.S. in electrical engineering magna cum laude with Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu (as president) honors from Tufts University. At Oxford’s Pembroke College, he is studying philosophy part-time and is a 2026 candidate for a Master of Studies in Practical Ethics (Artificial Intelligence).

He serves or has served on multiple boards: McKinsey; Focused Ultrasound Foundation; Sands Capital (lead director); Altec; UVA Darden; American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium (chair); Sandbox AQ (advisor); and Carlyle (advisor, board of Medforth Global Healthcare Education, the largest source of U.S. MDs).

A competitive tennis player, he played Varsity for Oxford, supports the UVA Men’s Tennis NCAA championship team and has played ITF World Senior Tennis Championships.

From a family of educators and dairy farmers, Beardsley was born in Maine and grew up in Vermont and Alaska, where he was valedictorian of the U.S.’s most diverse public high school. He is a French and U.S. citizen, is bilingual in English and French, and lives and teaches at Pavilion I on the Lawn. He and his wife Claire Dufournet of Annecy, France, have three sons and a daughter-in-law (Batten ’19, College ’20, McIntire ’21, Darden ’23 and ’24) and a golden retriever, Lawnie.