Lynn Perry Wooten

University president and business professor Lynn Perry Wooten was born on August 18, 1966 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Deloris Stallings Perry and Charles Perry. Wooten received her B.S. degree in accounting from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1988; her M.B.A. degree in business administration and general management from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 1990; and her Ph.D. degree in corporate strategy business from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1995.

Wooten worked for the General Motors corporate audit team while attending North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Wooten served as an assistant professor of management at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business in Gainesville, Florida. In 1998, Wooten was hired as a clinical associate professor at her alma mater, the University of Michigan, and was promoted to clinical professor in 2014. Wooten also worked at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business as co-director of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship in 2008, co-director of the Executive Leadership Institute, and associate dean of the undergraduate program in 2011. In 2017, Wooten joined Cornell University in Ithaca, New York as the David J. Nolan Dean of the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management. Wooten then was hired as the first African American president of Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts in 2020.

Throughout her career, Wooten has published numerous book chapters, academic articles, and books including Leading Under Pressure: From Surviving to Thriving Before, During, and After a Crisis with Erika Hayes James in 2010, Positive Organizing in a Global Society: Understanding and Engaging Differences for Capacity Building and Inclusion with Laura Morgan Roberts and Martin N. Davidson in 2015, Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership with Susan MacKenty Brady and Janet Foutty in 2022, and The Prepared Leader: Emerge from Any Crisis More Resilient than Before with Erika Hayes James in 2022.

During her career, Wooten has served on the boards of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, the Washtenaw Community College Foundation, the Center for Effective Philosophy, the Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program Advisory Board, and the Aspen Institute’s Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education Advisory Committee. She also served as a trustee of the Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan and as a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., The Links, Inc., Jack & Jill of America, and the Junior League.

Wooten has received numerous awards and honors including the BBA Student Award for Teaching Excellence and the Andy Andrews Distinguished Service Award from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She was also included on the Financial Times’ “Next Generation Business Thinker” list.

Wooten and her husband, David Wooten, reside in Boston, Massachusetts. They have two children: Jada and Justin Wooten.

Lynn Perry Wooten was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 13, 2024.