Meet Our President

James Danko Biography 

President James M. Danko became the 21st president of Butler University in August 2011.

President Danko is an innovator at heart, and his nontraditional path to the presidency makes him unique in the world of higher education.

Prior to his academic career, President Danko was a successful entrepreneur in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio for nearly two decades. At age 19, he founded a medical equipment company - which he later expanded into one of the largest health care, rehabilitation and fitness equipment providers in the Midwest.

After he sold his company, President Danko taught entrepreneurship and served in leadership roles at Babson College, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Michigan. In his role as director of MBA program innovations at Michigan, he worked to link theory with practice in creative new ways. During President Danko's time there, Michigan's MBA program earned international recognition for pioneering a significant shift in business pedagogy.

President Danko also brought his transformational leadership approach to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he served as associate dean and - most recently - to the Villanova School of Business, where he served as dean.

During his Villanova tenure, financial gifts to the school increased nearly five-fold - enabling it to implement bold efforts including a brand new curriculum, a comprehensive student-services wing, and cutting-edge research centers focused on real estate, innovation, and analytics. In addition, the school jumped from regional recognition to being ranked by BusinessWeek as #7 in the nation.

President Danko believes that empowering faculty and staff members to succeed by matching them with the resources they need to run with their ideas is the foundation of great academic leadership.

He served as a founding board member and as president of the MBA Roundtable, a worldwide consortium focused on curricular innovation, and as a member of the international board of the Graduate Management Admission Council.

President Danko has two daughters, Melanie and Meredith, who live in New York City and Boston. He and his wife, Bethanie, live on campus in the Butler president's residence. They enjoy spending their free time visiting with family members and vacationing on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina.