Hassell H. McClellan

Professor Hassell McClellan was born on July 10, 1945 in Georgetown, Kentucky to Martha Anna Spotts McClellan and Raymond Earl McClellan. He received his B.A. degree in economics and mathematics from Fisk University in 1967, his M.B.A. degree in finance and marketing from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1969, and his D.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1978.

After receiving his M.B.A. degree, McClellan worked in corporate lending at Harris Trust in Chicago, Illinois. Then, in 1976, while working on his D.B.A. degree, he was invited to join the faculty of Harvard Business School, where he taught until 1980. While here, McClellan also co-founded the Policy and Research Institute, a strategic management consulting firm, with James I. Cash and others. He then joined the faculty of Boston College’s Wallace E. Carroll School of Management in 1984, where he served as associate professor of finance and policy until 2013 and graduate dean from 1996 to 2000, helping bring the school into top forty rankings of business schools in the U.S. for the first time. McClellan also taught at the University of Strasbourg and the ESADE Business School in Barcelona.

In 1981, McClellan published his book Managing One-Bank Holding Companies.

McClellan has served on several boards of directors, including as chair of the John Hancock Group of Funds, the Barnes Group, and DentaQuest Ventures and as a member of Virtus Mutual Funds and Delta Dental of Massachusetts. He also has served on numerous boards of trustees, including those of Fisk University, Lesley University, Berklee College of Music, Thayer Academy, and Tufts-New England Medical Center. McClellan also has served on the Investment Advisory Committee of the Frances Emily Hunt Trust and as an overseer of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 2011, he was appointed to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities.

McClellan has been a member of the National Black MBA Association since 1970, where he has served as a board consultant. In 2015, he conceived a Global Studies Fund to enable Fisk students to attend the London School of Economics and Political Science. The Hassell McClellan Award Recognizing Dedication to Fisk University was named in his honor.

McClellan was awarded Trustee of the Year by Fund Intelligence in 2021.

McClellan lives in Milton, Massachusetts. He has two children, Keisha McClellan and H. Drew McClellan.

Hassell McClellan was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on July 11, 2022.