Six months into a five-year contract as dean of the University of Western Australia’s business school, former corporate adviser Tracey Horton appears comfortable with her new academic role
Six months into a five-year contract as dean of the University of Western Australia’s business school, former corporate adviser Tracey Horton appears comfortable with her new academic role.
Ms Horton arrived to take charge of the school at a time of unprecedented change.
Heralding the new direction for UWA’s business school is the construction of a new $45 million building to house the business school on the eastern end of the campus.
Ms Horton is clear that one of her main aims as dean is to forge better relationships with the business community.
“I want to get in front of business leaders and explore ways we can work together,” she said.
“Some companies see us as a recruitment base alone, but others think a lot more laterally and offer training and learning opportunities for staff.
“The more we talk to business, the more we see that the work we do is relevant to them.
“I would like to create deeper relationships with mutually beneficial outcomes for all facets of business, including government organisations, industry bodies, and the not-for-profit sector.”
As a graduate of UWA in 1986 with an honours degree in economics, Ms Horton secured a position with the Reserve Bank, where she stayed for five years before moving to the US to study for an MBA at the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Ms Horton then took a position with global consulting company Bain and Company before returning to Perth and working as a partner at Poynton and Partners and its peer GEM consulting.
After the sale of Poynton and GEM, Ms Horton resumed her direct links with UWA. She began working with UWA’s vice chancellor Alan Robson on a new direction for the business school, a strategy which she is effectively now implementing.
Azure Capital managing director Mark Barnaba, the former managing director and CEO of Poynton and GEM, said he realised Ms Horton’s potential value to his operation very early on after their first meeting, and subsequently offered her a job.
Mr Barnaba is also the chair of the UWA Business School board, and said that when Poynton was sold Ms Horton also left the organisation.
He suggested that she put her name up for the position of dean.
“Tracey isn’t a blue blood academic, but she has a fantastic background and is highly respected in business,” Mr Barnaba said.
“I see her skill as being a good consensus builder – she listens to everyone and moves forward reflecting the views of the majority.”
He added that the board had been very pleased with Ms Horton’s first six months in the job.
Ms Horton sees the biggest challenge in her role at UWA as leading the school in a new direction to make it more in line with business.
“A lot of people were happy and didn’t see the need to do other things with the business school. Not every person needs to come along, but it needs to be more than just a handful, and building the momentum is the biggest challenge,” Ms Horton said.
She said the “ability to have a view about where you are headed as an organisation while incorporating the views of others”, was vital to the role of dean.
Professor Ken Clements, who supervised Ms Horton’s honours thesis when she was a student, has watched her grow throughout her career.
“Tracey has a very good sense of academic purpose, looks after the students, facilitates exciting and valuable research and interacts with the outside world, all of which makes for a good dean,” Professor Clements said.
“Her non-academic background isn’t as stark as it may seem. The Reserve Bank is essentially an academic institution, and her background in consulting would have had a large academic research dimension – it is an interesting and appealing background for a dean of business.”
Ms Horton acknowledges that her non-academic background was slightly controversial, but said the position advertised for someone with business experience who could bring a degree of experience to the school.
“I am used to dealing with organisations to create value, which is a different skills set to have from being an academic,” she told WA Business News.
“Having said that, I do come from a different environment and have tried to spend a lot of time listening to others’ points of view.
“For me, success will be about a lot of people in the business school moving in the same direction and achieving a common goal.”
• To see the first public images of the new school design, turn to the Property section on page 23.
