UVM business dean Sharma named Fetner Fellow

Vermont Business Magazine Sanjay Sharma, dean of the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business, has been named the 2018 Fetner Sustainable Enterprise Fellow. The prestigious research fellowship is made annually to a leading international scholar in sustainable enterprise. The fellowship program is a joint initiative of the Sustainable Enterprise Partnership of the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Sciences, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the Syracuse University Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems.

Fetner Fellows participate in a three-day residency, delivering a series of research lectures to faculty and graduate students at the Whitman School, L.C. Smith College and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Sanjay Sharma, dean of UVM's Grossman School of Business, is the 2018 Fetner Fellow. (Photo: Sally McCay)

A Fulbright Scholar with extensive experience in the private sector, Sharma has expertise in corporate environmental strategy, corporate sustainability, competitive strategy, stakeholder engagement and organizational innovation. He has written and co-edited nine books on corporate sustainability and has won several prestigious awards for his research, including the Academy of Management ONE Division's Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

His latest books include "Competing for a Sustainable World: Building Capacity for Sustainable Innovation," written for scholars and practitioners, which was the runner-up for the best book at the 2015 annual awards of the ONE division of the Academy of Management, and "Patient Capital: The Role of Family Firms in Sustainable Business," a research monograph in publication with the Cambridge University Press and due for release in 2019.

His research has been widely published in top management journals including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Marketing.

A year after coming to UVM in 2011, Sharma and his leadership team launched a new MBA program focused on sustainable enterprise now called the Sustainable Innovation MBA. The program was ranked the #1 Green MBA program by the Princeton Review in 2017 and #8 in the world in Corporate Knights Better World's MBA rankings in 2017. He has also led the revamping of the Grossman School's undergraduate curriculum, adding sustainable business as a theme, and has overseen a 23 percent improvement in selectivity while substantially increasing enrollments and academic quality. He raised donor funding for the privately funded Ifshin Hall expansion that opened in July 2018 and will be formally dedicated on October 4.

Sharma’s residency will take place September 26-29.