Kelly Bean knows major corporations ““ she has worked with top executives from the Coca-Cola Company to McDonald’s.
Now she will bring her business expertise to campus as she takes over as assistant dean for executive education at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
“I’m thrilled to be here in the UCLA community,” she said. “This was a really neat opportunity for me and for my family.”
The Anderson School’s executive education programs are aimed at top-level professionals who want to improve their leadership and management skills and serves nearly 2,000 people each year, according to the Anderson School’s Web site.
Bean has worked with similar programs at other universities ““ for the past several years, she was the executive director of executive education at Emory University’s business school, and before that she served as associate director of executive education at the University of South Carolina.
But she said UCLA’s unique programs are part of what drew her to the school.
“I’m very impressed with the quality of work, particularly in the diversity area and the leadership area as well,” she said. “Work that UCLA’s doing on diversity is work that other places aren’t doing.”
She cited the Anderson School’s Leadership Suites as an example. The Leadership Suites are targeted to minority executives, including female professionals and executives with disabilities.
“The leadership institute for executives with disabilities ““ no one else is doing it,” she said.
Bean has led programs with unique spins in the past. One program she helped develop for the State Department brought 20 Middle Eastern women to the United States to learn leadership and entrepreneurship techniques at Emory University.
Alfred E. Osborne Jr., senior associate dean of the Anderson School, said in a statement that he believes Bean’s experience will help her make an immediate contribution to UCLA.
“We expect her to fit right in, kick off from the foundation of her predecessor, and expand our external presence around the globe,” he said.
Bean said that though it is too early to lay out specific goals she has for the executive education program at the Anderson School, she believes such programs can have important benefits for the university as a whole.
“To me, executive education … opens doors for development opportunities, it opens doors for recruiting for students,” she said.
She added that it gives faculty members an outlet for their research as well.
Bean replaces Laurie Dowling, who was not available for comment.
But Dowling has said in the past that the Anderson School’s executive education programs are important tools for helping professionals develop into stronger leaders and businesspeople.
“We look at core leadership topics through the prism of the experience of the people in the room,” Dowling has said of the Anderson School’s programs.