The Executive MBA program at the Naveen Jindal School of Management celebrates its 20th anniversary this fall with new leadership.

Pamela Foster Brady has returned to the Jindal School as the new program director after graduating from the Executive MBA Class of 2011.

Pamela Foster Brady

“The UT Dallas Executive MBA program was transformational for me,” said Foster Brady, who had been a vice president at Atkins (formerly PBS&J) in Dallas. She was searching, she said, “for an opportunity that would allow me to build upon my strengths in managing, marketing and business development, and to stretch in strategic leadership. I am very passionate about the Executive MBA program, and it seems like a natural fit.”

She succeeds Dan Bochsler, a JSOM senior lecturer in organizations, strategy and international management. Bochsler, who has returned to teaching, will be spearheading an effort to develop start-up launch strategies to move business ideas from concept to market.

Filling the newly created position of academic director is Dr. David Springate, a Jindal School finance professor who has deep ties to the Executive MBA program. He was founding associate dean for Executive Education at UT Dallas, was the Executive MBA’s founding director and has been an instructor for every Executive MBA class since the program’s inception in 1993. He also is co-founder and director of the Jindal School’s Center for Finance Strategy Innovation.

“The marketplace is telling us we need to make changes,” Springate said. “And we pride ourselves on listening and responding to industry and student needs.” 

Dr. David Springate

Dr. Hasan Pirkul, dean and Caruth Chair for the Naveen Jindal School of Management, said this new management structure will ensure continued innovation in the Executive MBA program, guaranteeing its relevance to midlevel and senior managers, who are the program’s students.

“This is the right time, I believe, to leverage the wealth of resources and innovative thinking among our alumni to make our Executive MBA as impactful as possible,” Pirkul said. “ And David Springate is the right person to connect with these influential leaders and bring their ideas back into the classroom.”

Gerald (Jerry) Hoag, JSOM’s associate dean for Executive Education, said Foster Brady was the outstanding program director candidate “because of her enthusiasm and passion to renew the program for the next 10 years. She knows the market and has a thorough understanding of our Executive MBA program characteristics, and where change is needed.”

“The marketplace is telling us we need to make changes. And we pride ourselves on listening and responding to industry and student needs.”

Dr. David Springate,
academic director

Foster Brady is “well-oriented to the program’s vision, to its strategy and to meeting individual student needs,” said Monica Powell, JSOM’s associate dean for graduate programs.

Among the Program’ events this year is a Nov. 3 reception for Executive MBA alumni, being held at the school. 

The program is designed to prepare experienced working managers and senior professionals for senior management and executive-level positions.

Foster Brady brings 25 years of business leadership to her new role.

She was a civil engineering undergraduate of the University of Tennessee and advanced professionally through progressively more responsible toll and transportation development projects. After spending four years in New Jersey managing and directing programs for toll agencies there as well as in New York and Delaware, she moved to Texas in 2000 to initiate Atkins’ toll programs in this state.

Last year, Financial Times ranked the JSOM Executive MBA program No. 13 among its U.S.-based public university counterparts, and Bloomberg Businessweek ranked it No. 10 among public university executive MBA programs.