Larry Penley

Larry Edward Penley is a management consultant specializing in strategic management and market positioning. He has a record of educational innovation from his earliest days as an associate dean when he created an off-campus MBA focused on working scientists and engineers actively engaged in R&D.

Mr. Penley served as the president of Colorado State University (CSU) from 2003-2008, leading strategic re-positioning as an educational innovator with responsibility for creative, pragmatic solutions to some of our greatest global challenges. He turned around a decline in enrollment while raising substantially participation in the honors program and providing full scholarships to all Pell-eligible freshmen. Because of his commitment to accessible education for working adults, he directed the development of a business plan for a new campus – CSU Global – that used only online instruction.

For almost 20 years Penley was professor of management at Arizona State University where he held the Herberger Arizona Heritage Chair and was dean of the W. P. Carey School of Business. As dean, he led the development of a strategic plan that shaped the development of the school over more than a decade, leading to its national and international recognition.

Mr. Penley is a UCLA certified corporate director, registered with NASDAQ. He has served on corporate boards, and his sense of community responsibility has led him to serve on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Inroads Arizona, the Rocky Mountain Region of the Institute for International Education, and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. He has also served on the advisory council of ESC Toulouse and the advisory board of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Penley’s academic discipline is management. His work as a social scientist has focused on the intersection between individual and organizational behavior and it has been published in major academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal. He holds the Ph. D. in management from the University of Georgia, and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from Wake Forest University. In addition to his positions in the U. S., he has held visiting faculty positions in Mexico and Venezuela; he speaks Spanish and English. He and his wife, Yolanda Sanchez Penley, raised their two children in Arizona and they now live in Chandler Arizona.