Ferrari outlines his plans for Carey Business School

Bernard T. Ferrari delivered his first major speech as the dean of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School on Wednesday at the school's campus in Baltimore, outlining his goals for the school and discussing four distinct areas of focus.

Ferrari said the school plans to intensify the focus of its research and instruction on four specific areas of the economy—health care; real estate and public infrastructure; the financial services industry; and the national security industry. He also reaffirmed the school's commitment to business that "promotes both the bottom line and the well-being of society."

"Business schools do a disservice if they merely train people for short-term profit-making at the expense of strengthening their markets, improving their industry, and advancing society," he said. "The past decade supplies more than enough evidence of how destructive such a mindset can be.

"Now don't be mistaken. We believe profit is good; very good. We teach our students how to increase it. But we also teach that profit can not be the only goal of business. ... We believe that business, by embracing the bigger picture, has the power to change the world in a positive way."

Ferrari's speech can be viewed in its entirety on the school's website.

Ferrari became the second dean of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in July 2012. He previously was a director at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he spent nearly two decades leading McKinsey's healthcare practice and the firm's North American corporate strategy practice. After retiring from McKinsey in 2008, he founded and became chairman of the Ferrari Consultancy, serving clients in the financial services, transportation, energy, medical products, aviation, and heavy-equipment manufacturing sectors.

Ferrari is a graduate of the University of Rochester, where he also earned his M.D. He began his professional career as a surgeon and later was chief operating officer and assistant medical director of the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. Subsequently, he earned a J.D. magna cum laude from the Loyola University School of Law and an Executive M.B.A. from the Tulane University School of Business.