William F. Pounds (1928–2023) was an American academic who served as the dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1966 to 1980 and later as a professor emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.[1][2] He was chief financial adviser to the Rockefeller family and an executive in many of their holdings.
Biography
editPounds attended Carnegie Mellon University where he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and later earned masters and PhD degrees from Tepper School of Business, studying under Herbert Simon.[3] He also served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.[3]
Prior to his academic career, Pounds worked in operations management at Eastman Kodak and Pittsburgh Plate Glass, where he was involved in supplying automobile paint to General Motors.[3] He joined MIT Sloan in 1961 at the invitation of then-dean Howard Johnson.[3]
In 1969, amid campus protests against the U.S. Department of Defense's funding of MIT laboratories, Pounds led a review panel to evaluate the institution's relationship with military funding. The panel is now known as the Pounds Panel.[3]
After his tenure as dean, Pounds served as a senior advisor to the Rockefeller family from 1981 to 1991.[3] He was a member of several non-profit boards, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and WGBH.[3] Pounds was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3]
References
edit- ^ "William Pounds, MIT Sloan School dean who chaired a key Vietnam War-era panel, dies at 95 - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com.
- ^ "William F. Pounds | Speakers | MIT World". Archived from the original on 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2011-04-20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "MIT Sloan Dean Emeritus Bill Pounds, an expert in corporate governance and operations management, dies at 95". MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. September 13, 2023.
