Andrea Dossi, An Associate Dean to Foster SDA Bocconi’s Human Capital

The associate dean for SDA Faculty wants to shun the example of other schools of management, who have gradually drifted away from the business community.

The future of SDA Bocconi School of Management goes through the development of human capital. The school has consequently established the new role of Associate Dean for SDA Faculty. “It is the recognition of the peculiar nature of the school”, says Andrea Dossi, the Associate Professor of Auditing and Control who covers the new assignment. “Unlike the common schools of management, focused on Masters in Business Administration, SDA Bocconi’s revenues and activities are balanced between the MBA/MBA-like and executive education. It’s for the best. Other schools have gradually drifted away from the business community. We must avoid this: the bond with the community is one of our strengths”.

The business school is dedicated to developing a faculty able to close the link between teaching and applied research committed, more and more practice-oriented, with the aim of gaining thought leadership. At the core of the project, Dossi says, is the figure of the professor of the practice. His duty is to transfer research results into managerial classes, have a deep knowledge of business languages and issues, context reading abilities and an international perspective. “We want to nurture teachers that are able to talk with the European and global business community to participate in fundamental debates that animate firms and institutions, to provide tailor-made learning experiences. New research ideas arise from the dialogue with the practitioners”.

Dossi has always worked at SDA Bocconi, “a natural choice for an academic who deals with Accounting”. From 2004 to 2014 he was Director of the Accounting, Control, Corporate and Real Estate Finance Department, from 2015 to 2016 he was Director of the Executive Education Custom Programs - Corporate Division. “These experiences have taught me that you should know and use all research methods to actively contribute to the evolution of the business community. In executive education you never stop learning: managers love to interact and the firms themselves ask for innovative teaching techniques such as blended learning programs”.

Dossi is married with six children. In his spare time, he loves to camp and bike with them. A few years ago, he began to play squash, a sport not so popular in Italy. He says, laughing, that Giuseppe Soda, Dean of SDA Bocconi, tries to persuade him to stop playing squash by quoting a passage from the play “Il teatro canzone”, when Giorgio Gaber says that you don’t have to be stupid to play squash, but it certainly helps. This is not true, Dossi says. “When it comes to squash, intelligence is way more important than strength”.

Source: ViaSarfatti25