Lead, Follow, or Fail

PROFESSOR PETER J. BREWS stepped down as Dean of the Darla Moore School of Business (DMSB) in December 2022 after 9 years in office, and left academic life as dean emeritus in December 2023. Brews’ professional career started in investment banking and then moved into higher education, where after earning graduate degrees in both law and business and two PhDs in business he taught business law, economics, finance, corporate strategy/strategic management and international business while conducting research at three leading universities, the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill in the United States. His accomplishments range from world class researcher/teacher as individual contributor—he holds multiple awards for both activities—to academic entrepreneur in the proposal and leadership of innovative high value academic programs, to transformational leader of DMSB, the 6,400-student strong premier academic brand of the University of South Carolina.  Brews has published in Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Business Strategy Review, Long Range Planning, The South African Journal of Business Management, The South African Company Law Journal, The Investment Analysts’ Journal, The Financial Times, and other journals and publications. Companies have often invited Brews to share his views on topics that range from nation building and the structure and evolution of the global economy, to the human struggle for productivity worldwide—focusing on how nations, firms, and individuals maintain global competitiveness in the fast changing, complex global economy—to how the internet/IT and the networking of business operations are altering business and global competitiveness. He has also taught widely and consulted internationally in these fields.  Firms he has worked with include Barclays Bank, Boeing, Caterpillar, Eastman Chemical, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Grant Thornton, Lucent Technologies Asia/Pacific (H.K.) Ltd., Merrill Lynch, Progress Energy, Siemens AG, The Mandarin Hotel Group of Hong Kong, LG of South Korea, and Standard Bank and Telkom in South Africa.