Erika H. James has served as the John H. Harland Dean at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School since 2014. An award-winning educator, accomplished consultant and published researcher, she was the first African-American woman to be appointed dean of a top-25 business school and has paved the way for women in leadership both in education and corporate America. Erika has been instrumental in starting various Executive Education programs, including the Women’s Leadership program at Darden. As dean, Erika places an emphasis on what higher education, particularly business education, can do to be of service to industry.

Erika currently sits on the boards of SurveyMonkey, a California-based online survey company, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), the foremost authority on business school admissions and manager of the GMAT exam and several Atlanta Community organizations that align with her passion for education and advancing women in business. Before her current role at Goizueta, Erika served as the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education at the Darden Graduate School of Business (University of Virginia). She also served as an assistant professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business, and a visiting professor at Harvard Business School. She holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges in California.