FAS Finance Dean To Depart After Less Than A Year

Brett C. Sweet, dean of administration and finance for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will leave Harvard in late July to assume the role of Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer at Vanderbilt University, FAS Dean Michael D. Smith announced Thursday morning. 

Sweet will leave less than a year after he first arrived on campus in September, as Harvard's endowment was on its way to an unprecedented four-month decline of 22 percent that would mean sweeping budget cuts for Harvard's largest school. A stalwart presence at Smith's side during these cutbacks and layoffs, Sweet has served a crucial role in the FAS administration, which has found itself saddled with a $220 million annual deficit to close over the next two years. 

Sweet, who worked closely on the budgetary planning that so prominently dictated the University's operations this past year, is not the only high-profile finance administrator to leave the University this summer. Harvard announced little more than a month ago that its Executive Vice President, Edward C. Forst ’82, would leave Harvard in August for Wall Street, where he had worked for 26 years. Forst worked closely with Sweet in his role overseeing University finances amid the economic downturn.  

“These positions are critical to our future. That’s why, as I understood there was no way to keep Brett, we immediately started to look at how we could fill in for him,” Smith said in an interview Thursday, adding that he has made adjustments to his own schedule to ensure that the national search for a replacement becomes a high priority. “We’re not wasting any time.” 

Smith said Sweet told him of the news “just recently,” sometime during June, but he declined to provide a precise date. The news came as a surprise, Smith said, adding that despite the FAS leader’s best efforts to convince Sweet to stay, the finance dean stood firm. 

“He made his decision, and I respected that,” Smith said.  

After realizing that Sweet could not be swayed, Smith said he immediately initiated the search for an acting dean and reached out to officials throughout the University, asking them to extend their responsibilities slightly and take over portions of Sweet's duties. "Right now, we're stretching," Smith said. But he added that he has no plans to institute a mass restructuring of administrative positions. 

Though Smith has not been privy to all of the details surrounding Sweet’s determination to leave, Smith said he believes that the Vanderbilt position constitutes a “wonderful opportunity” and “a step up.” Smith said he does not know if there were any other institutions besides Vanderbilt that Sweet had been considering as a future home. 

Smith said that his conversation with Sweet had largely been focused on the remainder of Sweet’s tenure at Harvard and plans for continuing initiatives that had been started before Sweet announced his departure.  

Sweet could not be reached for comment Thursday, but in a Vanderbilt press release, he said he was attracted to the "number of exciting strategic endeavors that many universities only talk about doing" and Vanderbilt's reputation for collaboration between faculty and staff.  

“Universities struggle with this," Sweet said in the release. "Vanderbilt has cracked the code in this area, which is evidenced by the shared sense of vision and support by faculty, students and staff.” 

Sweet's appointment as CFO will be effective in August, pending approval from the members on the Vanderbilt Board of Trust—the group vested with the governance of the University. 

According to Vanderbilt spokeswoman Elizabeth L. Latt, Vanderbilt's CFO does not have direct oversight of the university's endowment, which had experienced a 16 percent decline as of December. Rather, the CFO manages the more "day-to-day" finances by dealing with specific units across the University.  

A search committee was created in February to fill the vacancy left by former CFO Lauren Brisky's retirement, according to Latt. But she said she does not know if Sweet had been a candidate for the position since the committee's inception. Though Vanderbilt made its official announcement today, discussions between Sweet and the Vanderbilt administration to finalize the move transpired in June, Latt said.  

Sweet, a former cryptographic researcher, has brought sharp insight to Harvard's finances for not only top Faculty deans but also the departments and centers that must translate the deluge of figures into real-life budget cuts, Smith said. After Smith delivered a mandate to departments to cut their budgets by 15 percent in December, Sweet became the go-to man who could bring reality to the numbers.  

"Down through the organization, he's made it much easier for people in departments and centers to make decisions based on real information about what's happening in the system," Smith said on Thursday. "He has done a terrific job coming in and strengthening our organization."  

“This last year, he's been pretty phenomenal, experienced or new, with all of the budget changes we’re going though,” said Nancy M. Cline, the head of the Harvard College Library, in an interview in May. “The breadth of problem-solving that a person has had usually makes a difference.”  

The departure of Sweet, along with those traits that have made him a valuable financial administrator, may bode poorly for a University that will have to weather the financial storm without his aid.  

“It’s unfortunate for Harvard because we clearly are in a very serious financial state,” said Harry R. Lewis ’68, former dean of Harvard College. “This is a place where it takes a lot to understand how it works. The learning curve is not overnight.”  

But Smith said he is confident that Sweet has set a standard for excellence that will ease the entrance of the next dean for administration and finance. Plus, Sweet’s successor will know full well the severity of the current fiscal picture, which only became fully clear after Sweet arrived at Harvard.  

"I actually think it's a little bit better for the new incoming person than it was for Brett," Smith said. “[Sweet] has been extremely organized in his time here and has a lot of what’s going on recorded in ways that I think would be—I wouldn’t say easy—but absolutely possible for a new person to come in and get up to speed quickly."  

Sweet, who once served as a special projects officer with the National Security Agency, has been hopping between employers and even countries for much of his professional life. After serving as a nuclear submarine officer on the USS Georgia in the 1990s, Sweet opted for finance over an offer to teach at the Naval Academy, according to his mother Carolyn Sweet.  

After receiving his degree from Harvard Business School in 2000, Sweet started a four-year stint as a principal for the Boston Consulting Group—traveling to different states and even consulting for BMW in Germany for a year, according to Mrs. Sweet. He then served as executive vice president for administration and finance at Baylor College of Medicine before taking the reins of FAS finances last September.  

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu. 
—Staff writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.