It will likely be months before a new dean of the Wharton School is named, but Penn administrators are already gearing up for a search that experts say will be sweeping in scope.
The current Wharton dean, Patrick Harker, announced in December that he will leave Penn in July to assume the presidency at the University of Delaware.
But replacing Harker - whose resume boasts four Penn degrees, a slew of awards and several successful fundraising campaigns - will be an especially challenging hire, for which the University is relying on an outside firm for guidance.
And while University President Amy Gutmann said that the search will be "comprehensive" as committee members consider candidates in and out of Penn, some already have candidates in mind.
For example, Finance professor Andrew Metrick said that Wharton Deputy Dean David Schmittlein "would make a fantastic dean."
Metrick added that he is glad the University is conducting a broad search, but that "internal candidates should get a lot of attention."
Schmittlein would not comment on this issue or on his speculated candidacy for this article.
Meanwhile, search-firm insiders said that measuring internal candidates against external ones is a common practice - and a smart one.
"Wharton [should] benchmark internal candidates against the market to make the best possible decision," Allison Cheston, a representative for the Association of Executive Search Consultants, wrote in an e-mail.
Penn President Amy Gutmann said she expects to announce both the members of a search committee and the private firm that the University will use by the end of this month.
"We want to appoint the best dean for what we consider the best business school in the world," Gutmann said.
In the meantime, the University is currently considering a handful of firms.
One possibility is Witt Kiefer, the firm currently charged with finding a new dean for Stanford University's School of Medicine.
Another is Diversified Search, a firm that has been used to fill various fundraising positions at Penn.
And a prestigious search company may be just the thing to find Harker's successor.
"This is a truly noteworthy search . for Wharton and for Penn," said Craig Smith, a partner at the Philadelphia-based Opus Search Partners, Inc., a firm that aids universities in conducting searches to fill top positions.
Smith said he expects the University to go with a high-profile firm with a track record of filling top spots in academia. He mentioned Spencer Stuart in particular, a firm that Gutmann also said is being considered.
When it comes to developing an actual short list of candidates, "there are two qualities that remain key in dean searches: vision and fundraising," Smith noted.
Smith also pointed out that the Wharton name might be enough to attract deans that already have top perches in prestigious business schools.
Smith added that search firms - which typically take between six and nine months to complete the job - can act as a neutral intermediary when one university is essentially trying to steal a faculty member away from another school.
"Wharton is at or near the very top of its game and therefore should have the ability to look at sitting deans," he said.
