Texas McCombs Dean Lilian Mills: “My intellectual curiosity remains extremely high. And I want to excite a new generation of students about accounting — not as a bunch of rules, but as a field that demands judgment, insight, and big-picture thinking.” Sasha Haagensen Photography
Lillian Mills didn’t tiptoe into the deanship at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. She hit the ground sprinting — through a global pandemic, a shifting political landscape, and a massive capital campaign to transform the school’s future.
Now, after what will be six full years in the role, Mills has announced she’ll step down as dean at the end of her term in May 2026.
“I came in during Covid thinking it might not just be a six-year run,” Mills tells Poets&Quants in a Thursday (September 4) interview. “But with things to accomplish, it was pretty clear early on that there were important parts of the mission I needed to see through.” Among those goals: guiding McCombs through crisis, securing funding for a new state-of-the-art undergraduate building, strengthening the school’s academic reputation, and setting a leadership tone grounded in optimism, visibility, and gratitude.
“This has been the greatest honor of my professional life,” she says. “But I’ve always believed gratitude is an action — and now it’s time to set the stage for the next person to take McCombs even further.”
NAVIGATING A POLITICAL CROSSCURRENT
Mills stepped into the deanship in the midst of not only a pandemic but an increasingly polarized political climate. As she puts it, her job was as much about “holding hearts through the center” as it was about strategy.
“Across these six years, nationally and at the state level, I’ve been holding hearts through the center in the midst of some political pendulum,” she says. “That was important because we graduate 2,000 capitalists a year at McCombs. And by doing so, we help the economy thrive.”
Rather than let external forces distract from the school’s mission, Mills says, she has remained focused on cultivating excellence. “Our job is to take care of students and create knowledge. Whether it’s Covid or not Covid, we embrace the forces around us without being distracted by them.”
That balancing act has become more difficult in recent months as political scrutiny of higher education has intensified. Mills acknowledges that the climate has shifted, especially in Texas, and that institutional decisions — particularly around long-standing diversity initiatives — have become flashpoints.
About the declining public trust in higher education, Mills expresses concern: “I take it personally sometimes,” she admits. “I come from a family of professors — my dad taught geography, my brother was in English, and I married into a family of scientists. I believe deeply in the mission of higher ed across all disciplines.”
COVID, CAPITALISM & CULTURE
Mills became interim dean in April 2020 and was named permanent dean in June 2021, becoming the first woman in McCombs history to hold the top post. She stepped into the role at a precarious moment — mid-pandemic, with classrooms shuttered and uncertainty in the air.
“There was a lot of fear in the atmosphere back in 2020,” she recalls. “And I had to lead from a Zoom environment, in a university that prides itself on being in-person and hands-on.” Her focus then was twofold: to keep the McCombs community safe and centered, and to ensure that students, faculty, and staff never lost sight of their shared purpose.
One of the lessons she carried forward from that period: “Praise in public, coach in private.” Mills instituted a monthly practice in which her 25 senior leaders would report not only their wins and challenges, but also their kudos — recognitions for team members and campus collaborators. “I would spend hours on the weekend sending 60 personalized emails to share those kudos,” she says. “It’s tactical, but it was crucial to helping people feel seen. And when people feel seen, they give you their best.”
Lillian Mills: “When I meet an alum, I ask them to tell me their story. Somewhere in there is what they loved most about McCombs — a professor, a scholarship, a moment that changed their life. Fundraising, for me, is just connecting that love to something that needs support.”Courtesy photo
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: MULVA HALL
When Mills took office, the school’s undergraduate and faculty facilities were aging — 50 years old and showing it. The school’s latest AACSB accreditation review made it clear that McCombs’ educational and research excellence far outpaced its physical environment.
That sparked a campaign to build Mulva Hall, a $425 million, 375,000-square-foot, 17-story academic building now under construction. The school has already raised $172 million — well above its original $150 million target.
“You don’t raise that kind of money without enthusiasm,” Mills says. “People saw what this building could do for the future of business education in Texas and beyond. We made the case — and donors responded.”
She made a point of timing her exit so that her successor could transition smoothly and take full ownership of the move into the new space. “It’s not a one-month job to relocate into a 17-story building,” she says. “By stepping down in May, the next dean gets one year to plant their feet, and another to manage the move. That’s how you set someone up for success.”
Mills also accelerated the school’s next AACSB accreditation review, ensuring it would happen before she leaves. “It’s one more thing off the next dean’s plate,” she says. “They’ll walk into a school that’s accredited, funded, and ready for new initiatives.”
A DIFFERENT KIND OF FUNDRAISER
Despite a scholarly background in tax accounting and academic editorial leadership, Mills says she had to reintroduce herself to alumni once she became dean.
“Many of them didn’t know my academic gravitas,” she says. “I was cheerful and energetic, which played well in the alumni world — but I had to prove I was more than just enthusiastic.”
Still, she leaned into what she calls her superpower: storytelling through gratitude. Her approach to development was deeply personal. “When I meet an alum, I ask them to tell me their story,” she says. “Somewhere in there is what they loved most about McCombs — a professor, a scholarship, a moment that changed their life. Fundraising, for me, is just connecting that love to something that needs support.”
That approach helped McCombs blow past its $575 million “What Starts Here” campaign goal, topping $640 million to date.
HUMAN-CENTERED, FUTURE-FOCUSED
Mills often describes McCombs as “human-centered and future-focused,” but she also believes it’s something that’s lived, not branded. Her favorite recent example comes from a group of 12 students who were all selected for Morgan Stanley internship interviews. Instead of competing, they formed a study group.
“They knew Morgan Stanley probably didn’t plan to hire all 12,” she says. “But they thought: if we help each other, maybe we’ll outperform the expectations.”
Ten of the students got offers for summer 2025. Later, they all received full-time job offers from the consulting firm. All ten accepted.
“That’s unheard of in investment banking,” Mills says. “It speaks to the culture here. Texans have an innate optimism. They don’t have a scarcity mindset. And that optimism breeds collaboration.”
She credits that collaborative, optimistic spirit for the school’s growing Wall Street footprint: “A decade ago, we placed about 10 students a year on Wall Street. Now we’re placing close to 100.”
BACK TO HER ROOTS
After a sabbatical year, Mills will return to McCombs’ Department of Accounting. She has already begun reengaging with the research community, including Ph.D. students and fellow scholars exploring timely topics like AI hallucinations in financial reporting.
“My intellectual curiosity remains extremely high,” she says. “And I want to excite a new generation of students about accounting — not as a bunch of rules, but as a field that demands judgment, insight, and big-picture thinking.”
She’s also looking forward to participating more in campus-wide academic discourse. During her deanship, she regularly convened UT deans to discuss topics like AI, ethics, and the nature of consciousness.
“I’m beyond proud that I work at a university where the dean of philosophy, the med school dean, and I can sit around and debate what it means to be human,” she says. “Higher ed has a huge role to play in society’s future — and we need to do a better job telling that story.
She’s proud of the message McCombs sends to the world — one of inclusion, ambition, and possibility.
“We can change the world faster if we work together,” she says. “That’s what McCombs is about. That’s what Texas is about. And I’ll always be proud to have been part of that story.”
DON’T MISS THE P&Q INTERVIEW: HOW TEXAS McCOMBS DEAN LILIAN MILLS NAVIGATES A POST-PANDEMIC LANDSCAPE and AFTER 99 YEARS, TEXAS McCOMBS HIRES FIRST-EVER WOMAN DEAN
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