B. Joseph White

B. Joseph (Joe) White is president emeritus and professor emeritus of the University of Illinois and dean emeritus and professor emeritus of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he also served as interim president.

Joe is the author of The Nature of Leadership (2007) and Boards That Excel (2014).  He has practiced and taught, as well as written, spoken and advised on leadership and management, corporate governance, higher education, and human capital development.

Joe has been a director and family advisor for 34 years of Gordon Food Service, one of America’s 25 largest private companies, and is a director of Cozad Asset Management in Champaign IL.  He was a trustee of Equity Residential, an S&P 500 company chaired by Sam Zell, and of Kelly Services, the founding firm of the staffing industry, both for more than 20 years.  He spent six years as a senior executive of Cummins, Inc. in the 1980’s and served as interim head of Fred Alger Management, Inc. after the firm’s offices in the World Trade Center were destroyed on 9/11.

Joe advises companies and families that intend to thrive in perpetuity and is a mentor to CEOs and senior executives. He is a director of the non-profit Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Joe earned his bachelor's degree at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, an MBA at Harvard University, and a doctorate in business administration at the University of Michigan.