HBS Alumnus to Direct MBA Admissions and Aid

UPDATED: March 30, 2016, at 7:58 p.m.

Harvard Business School graduate and Bain & Company manager Chad Losee will be the next Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard Business School.

By Karen Zhou

Losee succeeds Deirdre C. Leopold, who has acted as the head of Admissions and Financial Aid since 2006. According to the Business School’s press release on the administrative change, Leopold will continue to work at HBS as the director for 2+2 program, a deferred admission option for students in college or in a full-time master’s degree program.

According to Jana P. Kierstead, the executive director of the MBA program, the school interviewed over 100 applicants for the new director position.

“We spent a fair amount of time thinking through what we were looking for. Higher education experience was an important factor, as was an ability to lead a multifaceted organization,” she said.

The Executive Dean Of Administration Angela Q. Crispi emphasized the many components the directorship role encompasses, such as admissions, financial aid, recruitment, and enrollment yield of admitted students.

“Admissions is one of the most important positions at any university because you are selecting a class. In doing that, at the core of the position is working with an admissions board to spot talent,” she said.

Losee is coming to HBS from a management position at Bain & Company’s Dallas office. Since finishing the MBA program in 2013 he has worked closely with senior leadership at HBS on a number of projects, including on the online platform CORe, according to Director of Media and Public Relations James E. Aisner.

According to the press release, Losee spent time as an observer for the HBS admissions board, where he interviewed prospective students during their application process. He was also a Leadership Fellow in the Dean’s Office for a year.

“The decision boiled down to a couple of things,” Kierstead said. “One is Chad’s incredible interpersonal skills—people meet him and feel at once comfortable and confident in him. The other was that his analytic and strategic skills are extraordinary.”

According to Kierstead, since Losee has spent time at HBS as both a student and a staff member, he is very familiar with the school’s “DNA.”

Crispi said she does not anticipate any changes in the way the Business School operates its admissions process, but that under Losee they will “continue to preserve” their method of reaching out to people who want access to an HBS education.

Losee will begin his new role as director in June, after Leopold wraps up the semester with the current MBA class of 2016 and steps down.

Kierstead attributed Leopold’s departure to a natural career change, as she has been in the position for ten years.

–Staff writer Julia E. DeBenedictis can be reached at julia.debenedictis@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Julia_DeBene.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: March 30, 2016

Because of incorrect information listed in a press release, an earlier version of this article indicated that Chad Losee was a Leadership Fellow at Harvard Business School. In fact, he was a fellow in the Dean's Office.