Missouri University of Science and Technology has appointed Raj Mahto as the founding director of the Dennis and Janet Jaggi School of Business and its Dennis and Janet Jaggi Endowed Chair of Business.
The appointment follows a $12.5 million gift from Dennis and Janet Jaggi that established the business school within Missouri S&T’s Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development, the university announced Nov 9.
Mahto will begin his duties in January 2027. He joins Missouri S&T from the University of New Mexico, where he is a Regents’ Professor at the Ellis School of Business Leadership. He previously chaired the university’s Department of Finance and Innovation.
James Sterling, vice provost and dean of the Kummer College, said Mahto’s engineering education and experience in business academia made him a suitable choice to lead the school. Sterling pointed to the opportunity to connect business education with Missouri S&T’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics-focused curriculum.
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Mahto said he intends to develop a business school model suited to Missouri S&T’s interdisciplinary academic environment, bringing business education together with engineering, systems thinking and innovation.
At the University of New Mexico, Mahto led the Department of Finance, International Management, Technology Management, and Entrepreneurship through a restructuring. The department had been administered by the dean’s office for nearly six months before he assumed its leadership.
He subsequently renamed it the Department of Finance and Innovation as part of an effort to reshape its culture and identity. During his leadership, the department recorded the highest research productivity in the university’s business school. It also increased enrollment, introduced new programs and strengthened its connections with the business community.
Mahto’s other leadership positions at UNM included founding and serving as executive director of the Parker Center for Family Business and directing the university’s Small Business Institute.
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His research interests include entrepreneurship, family business, innovation, and digital and artificial intelligence technologies under conditions of uncertainty. He has published more than 75 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with more than 7,000 citations on Google Scholar.
According to the Stanford University analysis of the Elsevier Data Repository cited in the university announcement, Mahto ranks among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists. He is also an associate editor of Technological Forecasting & Social Change and the European Journal of Innovation Management. His teaching experience includes small-business management, new venture creation, strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation and technology management.
Mahto holds a PhD in strategic management from the University of Memphis in Tennessee, an MBA from the University of New Mexico and a bachelor’s degree in instrumentation and control engineering from Gujarat University in India.
His appointment puts an innovative leader at the helm of newly established Jaggi School as Missouri S&T continues to develop the school within the Kummer College.