Bio

Jennifer Francis, PhD, was appointed Duke’s Executive Vice Provost on July 1, 2018. Previously, Francis served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs (2017-2018), and in the Fuqua School of Business as Senior Associate Dean of Programs (2011-2016) and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty (2006-2009). She is also the Robert L. Dickens Professor of Business Administration. 

As executive vice provost, Francis coordinates implementation of strategic priorities and new program development and strengthens teaching and research excellence in Duke’s academic units. She also oversees all financial and administrative offices and services within the Provost’s Office, which support the provost, deans and other senior officers in planning the allocation of resources, operational effectiveness, human resource management and a variety of institutional reporting and analysis tasks. Francis leads the budgeting, planning and institutional research group within the office, has broad responsibilities for coordinating student administrative services, and also leads the provost’s academic space planning working group.

Francis earned a B.S. in accounting at Bucknell University, and after working at Price Waterhouse, pursued her M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She joined the Duke faculty in 1987. Prior to coming to Duke, Francis was on the faculty at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.

Francis has taught core and elective MBA classes, in accounting and global strategy. She is the winner of over 15 awards for outstanding teaching. Her research interests focus on the quality of financial reporting and the relevance of financial reports to capital market participants. 

One of the first Duke faculty members to teach at Duke Kunshan University in the masters of management studies program there, Francis also assisted the Fuqua School’s initiative to develop a business school at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University.