“I took some friendly ribbing from my Duke colleagues about coming to Atlanta,” Mandl admits. “And I wasn’t anxious to leave Duke, Emory is a very good fit professionally and personally. I’m excited to see what we’re going to be able to accomplish.”

Incumbent John Temple retired this summer after two decades as Emory’s chief operating officer, having overseen a period of extraordinary growth and financial prosperity.

“We welcome Mike Mandl to succeed John Temple at Emory,” said President William M. Chace. “He brings to us an acute intelligence, a firm grasp of the complexities of private higher education in the United States, and a determination and tenacity to understand and then to solve the many fiscal issues that we, along with our national counterparts, will be facing in the coming years.”

At Duke, Mandl served as the chief financial services and budget officer since 1999, supervising the financial division, capital planning, sponsored research, and the enterprise wide administrative systems group. He led Duke in several strategic initiatives, including revamping the capital construction planning and reporting process, overhauling financial reporting and communications, and developing the financial component of the University’s strategic plan.

“We forged cooperative, productive relationships between the academic sector, the administrative sector, and the university’s health system,” he says. “Previously, there were many folks working in ‘silos’–they understood their own area, but not really other areas of interdependence. I spent a lot of time and effort breaking down those silos so people talked to each other and worked collectively. My hope is that legacy will continue.”

Peter Lange, provost at Duke, said, “Mike has been a superb financial leader. He has worked in a highly cooperative, supportive, intelligent, and creative way in assuring that we are able to optimize the financial resources supporting the academic sector.”

Mandl, who has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from George Washington University and a master’s degree in liberal studies from Duke, previously held other financial management positions at Duke and at the University of Pennsylvania, including serving as vice dean for finance and administration in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. He has also worked as a certified public accountant with KPMG Peat Marwick, and as a senior budget, financial, and accounting analyst with Glaxo Pharmaceuticals.

His experiences in the business world and at other private research universities will serve him well in his new position, Mandl says.

“Duke and Emory are similar in many dimensions: student body size, mix of undergraduate, professional, and graduate programs, annual revenue, magnitude of the health system and school of medicine,” he says. “There is overlap in many of the challenges, so I expect many of the issues I will deal with at Emory will be familiar.”

The stagnant economy is likely to affect higher education by resulting in low investment returns, constrained endowment payoffs, and more conservative philanthropy, Mandl says.

“Stewardship in a university is really about balancing the level, form, and timing of investments for current and future generations. We will need to be prudent on many fronts, but I believe it will also be important to take measured risks,” he says. “Emory will certainly face constraints, but like many other highly selective institutions, I believe it is well positioned to not only weather the storm but actually advance during these more difficult economic times. I firmly believe that Emory’s best days remain ahead.”–M.J.L.