Casey Ichniowski, chair of the Management Division and a faculty member at Columbia for 30 years, has died suddenly. Friends and community members are invited to attend a memorial service at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 4, at St. Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia campus.
Ichniowski was a strong and tireless advocate for the faculty and for Columbia Business School, most recently through his service on the School’s Executive Committee for the last two and a half years. He was deeply committed to teaching and recently developed a new elective, The Management and Economics of Professional Sports, while also chairing the division. He was instrumental to the development of the School’s popular Managerial Negotiations course. Ichniowski was often praised as the ideal division chair. He tried to understand the core issues facing the division and focused his intellect and energy on finding solutions to challenges in different areas. He was quick to make his ideas actionable and was in the process of implementing several key initiatives. He also was steadfast in his efforts to develop a presence in sports industry management for the School.
Ichniowski was an exceptional and active researcher and also authored several cases to enhance the School’s management and negotiations curriculum. His research was published in leading journals, including Labour Economics, American Economic Review, Management Science, and Industrial Relations. Even at this time, he had several papers under review and in progress. He was the recipient of the 2000 Chazen Prize for Best Paper in International Business.
"Casey was a much admired colleague whose incisive, balanced analysis led to excellent recommendations for the division and School," said Dean Glenn Hubbard. "He was a tireless, highly dedicated, collaborative division chair and a good friend whose sense of humor often shone through. His passing is an enormous loss for the Management Division and the School."
Ichniowski received his BA in 1977 from Harvard College. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1984 immediately after receiving his PhD from the Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was appointed the Carson Family Professor of Business in 2007.
A devoted, beloved family man, Ichniowski is survived by his wife, Anne, and children, Tim, Liz, and Carly. Liz is an alumna of the Business School, Carolyn is a student at Columbia College, and Tim graduated from Columbia College in 2010.
Condolence messages can be sent to Ichniowski’s family at caseycondolences@gmail.com.