Prof. Richard M Locke

John C Head III Dean
Professor of Global Economics and Management

Primary DLC

MIT Sloan School of Management

MIT Room: E60-316

Areas of Interest and Expertise

Labor and Environmental Conditions
Global Supply Chains

Research Summary

Richard Locke, a prominent scholar and academic administrator with a wide range of leadership experience, was named the dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, effective July 1, 2025.

In becoming the school’s 10th dean, Locke is rejoining the Institute, where he previously served in multiple roles from 1988 to 2013, as a faculty member, a department head, and a deputy dean of MIT Sloan. After leaving MIT, Locke was a senior leader at Brown University, including seven and a half years as Brown’s provost. Since early 2023, he has been dean of Apple University, an educational unit within Apple Inc. focused on educating the company’s employees on leadership, management, and the company’s culture and organization.

In his new role leading MIT Sloan, Professor Locke plans to focus on how new technologies will impact education, industry, and the workplace, with an emphasis on climate change, generative artificial intelligence, the future of work, advanced manufacturing, and health care innovation. He is the author of “The Promise and Limits of Private Power” (2013) and has published research on supply chains and working conditions during the pandemic and labor standards in the global electronics industry.

Recent Work