“It is an honor to return to UNC Kenan-Flagler, where I felt valued as a student and launched my career.”
Mary Margaret Frank, triple Tar Heel and Dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler
Typically, deans of schools don’t have the opportunity to boast they are triple graduates of the university they serve. Mary Margaret (Myers) Frank is the exception.
Frank’s career trajectory was shaped by her Carolina experience. As a soccer goalie in her hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she expected her next goal post high school to be majoring in art history. Little did she know she’d go on to earn three degrees from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and become its first female dean.
Frank’s dream was to start an art gallery, but she realized she needed a business foundation to make that dream come to life. Subsequently, Frank changed her major to business.
After attending the Undergraduate Business Symposium at UNC Kenan-Flagler, she heard that every aspiring entrepreneur should take accounting. This drop of knowledge from speaker Garry Snook ’68, then-CEO of Performance Bicycle, changed her life.
She went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from the Undergraduate Business Program (UBP) and study tax in the Master of Accounting (MAC) Program.
She practiced as a CPA and senior tax consultant for Arthur Andersen in Washington, D.C., for two years and returned to UNC Kenan-Flagler in 1994 to begin her doctoral studies in accounting with a specialization in taxation.
She came to UNC Kenan-Flagler in 2023 from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where she served as senior associate dean for faculty development, John Tyler Professor of Business Administration, and co-founder and academic director of the Institute for Business in Society.
At Darden, Frank won teaching and research awards and honed her collaborative leadership skills in a variety of roles. There, she propelled the program to success, even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She brings to Carolina all her exceptional leadership skills, her deep understanding of how to create opportunity at Carolina and above all, her passion for the impact business can have on communities.
“Over much of my academic career, I led where needed, often without title, so collaboration was key. I have spent a career building bridges within and across institutions.”
Frank is grateful she returned “home” to where her career began.
“It is an honor to return to UNC Kenan-Flagler, where I felt valued as a student and launched my career,” Frank said. “It’s not about three degrees. It’s about the experience that you have here. And the people here — the faculty, staff, students and alumni. I felt valued. I felt a part of a community. And for me, that’s how I choose places. I want to be at those places. I want to create those places, because I have had the blessings of being at those places and having them affect me and who I am.”
Frank is already set up for success having deep connections with so many of the faculty, from her student days, research collaboration, teaching in the MAC Program and serving as an academic fellow at the UNC Tax Center.
“Over 20 years after I completed my studies at UNC Kenan-Flagler, I am dedicated to ensuring that students, faculty and staff have access to the positive, collaborative learning experience I found at Carolina,” Frank said. “As dean, I aspire to advance a UNC Kenan-Flagler community that values each other’s strengths, allows ideas to flourish, fosters different perspectives and commits to each other’s success.”
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School holds strong rankings, including a #28 ranking in the U.S. for Best Business Schools by U.S. News & World Report and a #51 rank for its Global MBA by the Financial Times as of 2025.
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