After a decade leading the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, H. Rao Unnava, the Michael and Joelle Hurlston Dean, will step down on June 30, 2026, and return to faculty. Unnava, who came to UC Davis after 32 years with The Ohio State University, is a trailblazer in academia and entrepreneurship. A national search for his successor will begin in September.

“It is thanks to Dean Unnava’s creativity, enthusiasm, and visionary leadership that UC Davis continues to be recognized as one of the most innovative business schools in the country,” said Mary Croughan, provost and executive vice chancellor. “His focus on increasing access to academic programs and elevating the student experience has boosted enrollment, and his collaborative spirit has been such a benefit to UC Davis. I am very grateful that the campus will continue to benefit from Dean Unnava’s ideas, experience, and passion as an esteemed member of our faculty.”

In 2024, Unnava was selected as Dean of the Year by Poets&Quants, an industry publication focused on business education. This prestigious award recognized his innovative programming, including expanding opportunities for experiential learning that built skills on the business side of some of UC Davis’s greatest strengths: agriculture, biotechnology, and sustainable energy, among others. This year, Poets&Quants named the UC Davis Graduate School of Management among the top 10 business schools to watch in the U.S.

“It has been an honor to work alongside the top-notch faculty and staff at the Graduate School of Management and serve a very special group of students who have consistently shown how much they care about making the world a better place,” Unnava said. “I am also grateful to the Chancellor and the Provost for their leadership and guidance throughout this period. The support of our Dean’s Advisory Council members, our Alumni Board members, and our generous alumni paved the way for the fruition of many of our initiatives.”

Since Unnava’s arrival, more students than ever have benefitted from graduate management education at UC Davis. Among his initiatives were launching the first online MBA and part-time Master of Management programs in the University of California system, offering credit-bearing stackable credentials that could be applied toward a degree program, deferring tuition for online MBA candidates, creating a lifelong learning platform for the GSM community, and opening all MBA content to alumni for free.

Under Unnava’s leadership, the Graduate School of Management partnered with UC Davis Athletics to provide student-athletes with a way to continue competing in sports while earning a master’s degree. The collaboration led to an accelerated one-year Master of Management program, and dozens of student-athletes have earned the degree and entered their careers with a solid foundation in business, including accounting, finance, economics, and marketing.

This fall, GSM will welcome its first cohort of students to a new undergraduate business major, a joint academic program between GSM, the College of Letters and Sciences, and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The Bachelor of Science in Business is a result of decades of work by dedicated faculty and the support of campus leaders, including Unnava. The program has gained substantial interest, receiving 8,800 applications for its inaugural class of 175 students for the fall.

Unnava has strengthened relationships with alumni and raised philanthropic funds to advance innovation and support student success. Alumni Mike and Renée Child, whose $5.5 million donation in 2011 created the Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, gifted $5.2 million in 2020 to the Graduate School of Management and the School of Engineering to expand innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities. Joelle and Michael Hurlston – also Aggie alumni – generously gave $8 million to UC Davis in 2022, with a portion of the gift establishing the Michael and Joelle Hurlston Dean, the first endowed deanship on the Davis campus in the Graduate School of Management.

Following his tenure as dean, Unnava plans to take a sabbatical then return to teaching advertising and marketing as a professor in the Graduate School of Management in 2027.

Unnava earned a Bachelor of Science in electronics engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad, India, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, and a Ph.D. in business administration from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University.