Leadership

David A. Thomas

Dean

David A. Thomas is Dean and William R. Berkley Chair of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. A recognized thought leader in organizational behavior and strategic human resource management, Dr. Thomas’ research focuses on issues related to executive development, cultural diversity in organizations, leadership, and organizational change.

Prior to his appointment at Georgetown University, Dr. Thomas was the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he directed the school’s Organizational Behavior Unit. He also served as senior associate dean and director of faculty recruitment at Harvard; led its business school’s required first-year MBA course, Leadership and Organizational Behavior; and held the position of faculty chair for several executive education programs. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 1990, Dr. Thomas was an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Thomas has co-authored two books—Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (Harvard Business Press, 1999) and Leading For Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County (Harvard Education Press, 2009)—and more than 60 case studies and articles for leading academic journals and practitioner publications.

In addition to being widely published, Dr. Thomas has been recognized with a number of prestigious awards, including the Executive Development Roundtable’s Marion Gislason Award for Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Executive Development. He recently received the Administrative Science Quarterly Scholarly Contribution Award for the article that had the most impact on the field in the last five years. He also earned the George R. Terry Award from the Academy of Management for the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of management knowledge for his book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America.

Dr. Thomas received a Bachelor of Arts in Administrative Sciences and Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Organizational Behavior from Yale University. He also holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.

Pietra Rivoli

Deputy Dean

With responsibility for leading the faculty and academic initiatives, Pietra Rivoli will advance the school’s efforts to create distinctive excellence in both teaching and research. She has been a member of the finance and international business faculty at the McDonough School of Business for 27 years, and in that time received awards for her published work on business and social responsibility in the corporate environment.

Rivoli also is the author of the book The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy (2005, 2009), which has been widely acclaimed by both the popular press and the academic community as a groundbreaking study of globalization. Among the book’s numerous honors are being named one of the best business books of the year by the Financial Times, Booz Allen Hamilton, the Library Journal, and the American Association of Publishers. It has been translated into 14 languages. Additionally, her academic research has been published in numerous leading journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Journal of Money Credit and Banking. In 2006, Rivoli was awarded a Faculty Pioneer Award by the Aspen Institute.

Rivoli holds a Ph.D. in Finance and International Economics and a B.S. in Finance, both from the University of Florida.

Paul Almeida

Senior Associate Dean, Executive Education

Paul Almeida oversees the McDonough School of Business’ Office of Executive Education. The offerings include three master’s degree programs – the Executive MBA, the Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA, and the Executive Master’s in Leadership – as well as several custom and open enrollment non-degree programs. He focuses on strategy, academics, public relations, and business development for the department.

As an associate professor of strategy and international business at the school, Almeida’s academic research focuses on innovation, knowledge management, alliances, and informal collaborations across firms and countries. He has published in many leading journals including Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Management Science, Research Policy, and the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). He is currently the Editor for Strategy and Innovation for JIBS.

His involvement with the Executive Education programs at Georgetown started in 1997 when he began teaching in the Executive MBA program. He has since served as academic director for Executive Education for several years and played a major role in launching several custom programs. He also is the co-founder and co-director of the Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA.

Almeida holds a Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Doreen Amorosa

Associate Dean and Managing Director, MBA Career Center

Doreen Amorosa has responsibility for the MBA Career Center, which assists students with everything from identifying career options to being hired after graduation. She previously was the vice president for global recruitment and workforce planning at American Express, where she was accountable for recruitment strategy for hiring activity globally up to the director level, as well as service delivery of recruitment in the United States.

From 2006 to late 2007, Amorosa was the vice president of resourcing at ICI, where she was the global recruitment leader for more than 5,000 hires annually. Previously, she led talent acquisition at Avaya. In that position, she was accountable for 3,000 management and university hires annually. Amorosa joined Avaya after spending more than 20 years at Merrill Lynch. In her last position there, she was responsible for development and delivery of recruitment infrastructure, temporary staffing, retention and work/life programs, diversity initiatives, and HR policy.

Amorosa received an MBA from Seton Hall University with a concentration in management and industrial relations and a B.S. in management with a minor in psychology from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Additionally, she is a former member of the Advisory Board for the McDonough School of Business and is a senior advisor to the recruiting roundtable of the Corporate Executive Board.

Linn Deavers

Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer

Linn Deavers has been an administrator at the McDonough School of Business since 1984. As associate dean and chief operating officer, she has oversight for financial management, business operations, human resources, technology, faculty services, and building management. The school has an annual operating budget of more than $50 million and employs approximately 200 full-time faculty and staff. Deavers previously served as the school's chief financial officer and executive director of administrative and financial services. She also has served as treasurer of the Georgetown University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa since 1993.

Prior to joining the university, Deavers was employed as a public information specialist for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State. She holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Virginia.

Jeffrey Franke

Associate Dean for External Affairs and Special Advisor to the Dean

Jeff Franke Jeffrey Franke oversees the school’s alumni relations, Board of Advisors, Parents Advisory Council, corporate relations, community relations, and coordinates our development activities with the university’s central advancement office, which includes our stewardship activities and Capital Campaign. In addition, Franke will retain responsibility for select school-wide initiatives and projects. He joined the staff at Georgetown McDonough in 2006 as Chief of Staff to the Dean.

Prior to coming to Georgetown, Franke has worked in the government, private and non-profit arenas, most recently as an Officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts, Chief of Staff at Investors’ Education Foundation, and Managing Consultant at Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler, Inc. He has a B.A. in History from Stanford University and an MPA from the University of Southern California.

Elizabeth Griffith

Senior Associate Dean, MBA Evening Program

As senior associate dean, Elizabeth Griffith develops and implements the curriculum in addition to providing faculty oversight to ensure Georgetown's MBA Evening Program delivers a consistent and outstanding education to all students.

Griffith holds an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and spent 20 years in senior financial positions at Monticello, the Phillips Collection, National Public Radio, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Most recently, Griffith served as partner at Tatum LLC, a consulting and executive services firm, where she managed nonprofit clients and helped lead the nonprofit services group.

Griffith earned an M.A. in liberal studies at Georgetown University and currently is a doctoral candidate in the same program, with an interest in pre-modern business history. Additionally, Griffith has taught as an adjunct professor at the Darden School, Trinity University in Washington, D.C., and in the Georgetown Liberal Studies Program, and served as lecturer at the Smithsonian Institution on such topics as leadership and business history.

Chris M. Kormis

Associate Dean for Marketing and Communications

Chris Kormis Chris M. Kormis leads, develops, and implements strategic marketing and communications efforts that advance Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. She is the primary spokesperson, after the dean, to all external audiences, and directs communications strategies to promote the school, as well as raise its visibility among the news media, key stakeholders, and alumni.

Kormis previously served for 18 years at The George Washington University, departing as assistant vice president for University Relations, winning numerous awards. In 2001, she was tapped to lead the University Relations team as executive director, where she launched the GW News Center website, implemented new crisis communications measures, and enhanced university publications including GW Magazine, ByGeorge!, and the Guide to GW. Kormis also led numerous university committees.

She earned a B.A. from Duquesne University and an M.A. in English, professional writing, and rhetoric from George Mason University.

Elaine Romanelli

Senior Associate Dean, Full-time MBA Program

As senior associate dean, Elaine Romanelli provides leadership, vision, and strategy to the Full-time MBA Program at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. Romanelli oversees the offices of MBA Admissions and Program Management, and she works closely with faculty on issues related to the curriculum.

Romanelli also is an associate professor at the school, specializing in strategic management and entrepreneurship. Her current research focuses on the characteristics of firms and regional industry environments that are likely to promote new business foundings. In particular, she investigates the rise of U.S. biotechnology clusters. She has published articles in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Annual Review of Sociology, and Research in Organization Behavior. She also is an associate editor for Administrative Science Quarterly. She has consulted with both large and small companies, focusing on innovation and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Romanelli holds both a Ph.D. in Management of Organizations and an MBA in Marketing from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, as well as an A.B. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Norean Radke Sharpe

Senior Associate Dean and Director, Undergraduate Program

Norean Sharpe As the senior associate dean for the Undergraduate Program at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, Norean R. Sharpe is responsible for academic advising; creation of new global programs; implementation of academic policies; development of partnerships with non-profit and for-profit organizations; continuous improvement of the undergraduate curriculum; and donor development to support new initiatives.

Her career spans more than 20 years, including several years at Bowdoin College and at Babson College, where she most recently held the position of professor of statistics and chair of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Science. As chair, she facilitated the revision of the undergraduate business curriculum and improvement of the co-curricular experience of both undergraduate and MBA students. She also developed a strategic plan for quantitative undergraduate education, advised students, mentored faculty, and chaired multiple task forces that examined the academic, social, and cultural issues facing undergraduate business students.

She has authored more than 30 articles in the areas of analytics, statistics education, and women in science, and recently published the textbook Business Statistics. In 2006, Sharpe co-founded a Boston- based non-profit to further Diversity and Outreach in Mathematics and Engineering education, known as The DOME Foundation and currently sits on the boards of three nonprofit organizations in the Boston and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas.

Sharpe earned a B.A. in mathematics and German from Mount Holyoke College, an M.S. in biomathematics from the University of North Carolina, and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.