Taylor Randall HBA’90 has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by students who have to work their way through college. He was Inspector Number 14 at Lone Peak Designs, working up to 30 hours a week while completing a degree in accounting at the U. Randall would routinely take what he learned in the classroom and apply it at work, where he was quickly promoted to production manager by his impressed boss.
It was as an undergraduate that Randall also fell in love with the idea of being a professor, thanks to mentoring from the late English professor Brooke Hopkins, whom Randall says spent “an inordinate amount of time” teaching him to write. After graduating, Randall was hired at a top five accounting firm and then sought an MBA and doctorate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Among the many things Randall learned: He did, indeed, have a passion for education and for teaching.
And that led Randall right back to where he started: the U, where he initially taught managerial accounting before moving into administration. He’s served as dean of the David Eccles School of Business since 2009. Over the past decade, the Eccles School has added numerous buildings, programs, centers, and institutes—among them, the Goff Strategic Leadership Center, Sorenson Impact Center, Lassonde Studios, Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, and Marriner S. Eccles Institute.
If there is a business analogue for his role at the Eccles School, Randall says, it is that of managing partner, which captures the relationship between himself, faculty, donors, and alumni in ensuring that students get a rich educational experience.
Today’s business students want to do well in their own lives but also want to do well for others, he says. They have a real sense of community and purpose that hasn’t been typical of students in the past. Hence, the school’s tagline: Doers wanted.
