Mike Mazzeo, dean of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, was installed as the inaugural Knight Family Professor at a ceremony held May 21 in Knight and Bauer halls.
Provost Beverly R. Wendland offered an introduction, followed by remarks from Chancellor Andrew D. Martin and Dean Emeritus Robert L. Virgil, MBA ’60, DBA ’67.
The Knight family, longtime ardent supporters of the Olin, WashU and St. Louis communities, made the endowed position possible. Anne Knight Davidson, daughter of Charles F. and Joanne Knight, accepted the medallion on behalf of her family.
“Joanne Knight and her late husband, Chuck, have been critical partners in the growth and advancement of this entire university,” Martin said.
“The Knight family’s generosity has transformed the physical and intellectual landscape of the university. Their named gifts span academics, research, health care and facilities including the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center, the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center and Breast Cancer Program, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Knight Hall.
“The Knights’ devotion to Washington University is unparalleled. Their contributions have advanced knowledge and patient care and have created opportunities for innumerable students, faculty and researchers across the university,” he added.
Chuck Knight was CEO at Emerson Electric from 1973 to 2000. He was a member of WashU’s Board of Trustees from 1977 to 1990. Though not an alumnus of the business school, he adopted it as his own. Olin’s rise as a top business school was guided by its National Council, of which Knight was a founding member and former chair. He also was chair of the Business Task Force, an advisory group that preceded the National Council, and was instrumental in securing the landmark $15 million gift from the Olin Foundation to name the business school in 1988.
According to Virgil, nobody wanted to let Knight down, and he challenged them to take bold actions to advance the school by leaps and bounds. “Chuck was very committed to St. Louis. He and Joanne and their family lived here. The kids grew up here. The company that he led was headquartered here in St. Louis. In addition to that, he thought Washington University was one of the most important institutions in St. Louis and he was committed to it as well,” Virgil said. “Chuck believed that having a nationally recognized business school producing topflight graduates, who would go to work with St. Louis business and become citizens of St. Louis, would be good for St. Louis and Washington University. And he was willing to work toward making that happen, as it turns out, for three decades.”
Virgil went on to say, “We have to be careful throwing around ‘evers’ and ‘nevers’ because we don’t know the future. But you can build a very compelling case that the Olin School never would have reached where it is today if it wasn’t for Chuck Knight. To me, that case is a slam dunk. Chuck Knight was a force. One of the most unforgettable people I ever will meet.”
‘Lessons from Chuck’
At the ceremony, Mazzeo said he was honored to hold a professorship that bears the Knight family name, but also noted that unlike the deans that preceded him, he did not have the benefit of Chuck Knight’s wisdom and guidance to help him as he develops and implements strategy for Olin. What he does have, though, are the lessons that can be learned from his legacy, Mazzeo said.
Mazzeo used his installation address to reflect on three strategy lessons gleaned from the seminal 1981 Business Task Force Commission, led by Knight, that paved the way for Olin to become a nationally recognized business school. Those lessons are to be clear-eyed, to be unwaveringly ambitious and to know how to prioritize.
“In this spirit of Chuck, in gratitude to the Knight family and with respect for the proud legacy of Olin and leaders like Bob, I want to make a commitment to everyone here today,” Mazzeo said.
“So long as I have the honor of carrying this title of Knight Family Professor, I will approach my work with clear eyes; I will lead with ambition and energy; I’ll agonize over the priorities that will lead to enduring success; and I will be a steadfast partner with our leaders — be they in industry or our university — because together we can do something truly remarkable. Together, we can build a future in which one day, decades from now, a newly installed Knight Professor might reflect upon us and our era and the lessons from Chuck that we put into practice.”
About Mike Mazzeo
Mazzeo became dean of Olin Business School Sept. 1. He joined the Olin faculty after a 25-year career as a researcher, scholar and educator at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he was a professor of strategy and a faculty associate at the university’s Institute for Policy Research. Mazzeo has had a distinguished and prolific career as a researcher, and his work — focused on empirical industrial organization — has been cited thousands of times.
As a scholar, Mazzeo has developed new statistical methodologies for examining the relationship between product differentiation and market competition, with insights spanning the airline, banking, health-care, hospitality, retail and telecommunications industries and applications for both business strategy and antitrust analysis. He serves on the editorial board of the Review of Industrial Organization and is co-author of “Roadside MBA: Back Road Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Executives and Small Business Owners.”
Mazzeo earned his bachelor’s degree in economics and urban studies in 1991 and his PhD in economics in 1998, both from Stanford University.
Outside of work, he volunteers on the board of directors for Chicago-based Howard Brown Health, which provides LGBTQ+ affirming health-care services and is one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ nonprofits.
About the Knight family
The Knight family members are among St. Louis’ most committed and generous philanthropists.
In 2001, thanks to a combined gift from the Knights and Emerson, Olin Business School realized one of its major objectives, which was to build a first-class residential executive education center. The Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center opened in 2001 followed by the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Hall in 2014. Along with George and Carol Bauer Hall, which also opened in 2014, Olin’s footprint more than doubled.
In addition to the Knight Family Professorship and the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Directorship in Executive Education, the family has made deep commitments to medicine, including establishment of the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center and Breast Cancer Program in the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, the Charles F. Knight Emergency & Trauma Center, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and distinguished professorships in orthopedic surgery and in neurology.
Joanne Knight has been especially engaged in the work of the Alzheimer’s Association
of St. Louis, for which she has served in several volunteer and advisory positions, including a term as president. She also has worked with the Central Institute for the Deaf, including as a member of its board of directors. Her service to Washington University includes charter membership on the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center Community Advisory Board and serving as a member of the School of Art National Council.
In addition to receiving an honorary doctor of science degree in 1996 from WashU, Charles Knight received the university’s Robert S. Brookings Award in 1999 and its Eliot Society Search Award in 2007. He received Olin Business School’s Dean’s Medal in 1993 and, in 2012, both Charles and Joanne received that honor. In 2010, Joanne received an honorary doctor of humanities from the university.
