Dr. Lynnette Purda, Dean

Dr. Lynnette Purda was appointed as Interim Dean of Smith School of Business in January 2025. She is a Professor and RBC Fellow of Finance and recently held the role of Associate Dean (Graduate Programs). In her role as dean, Dr. Purda will continue to focus Smith on its commitment to delivering academic excellence and impactful research.

Her primary research area is corporate finance with a focus on governance. Her work appears in leading academic journals such as Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of International Business Studies, The American Law and Economics Review, and Financial Management. She has worked with policymakers and practitioners including the Bank of Canada, the Accounting Standards Oversight Council of Canada, and FP Canada. She is a past president of the Northern Finance Association.

Dr. Purda has been nominated for teaching excellence awards at both the undergraduate and Master’s levels. She has taught in programs across the Smith portfolio including Bachelor of Commerce, MBA, Master of Finance (both Toronto and Beijing), and Master of International Business. She also supervises research of masters and doctoral students and won the 2022 PhD/MSc Award for Research Supervision.

In the community, Dean Purda volunteers with the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area as a member of the Investment Committee, overseeing an endowed portfolio of $20M. Since 2010, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Queen’s University Investment Counsel, a student-run investment fund that manages over $3M in assets.

She is a Chartered Financial Analyst with industry investment banking experience and is an editor of the book Corporate Fraud Exposed. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, and a PhD in Finance from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Dr. Purda is serving an 18-month term as Dean.