UVM Invests Srinivas Venugopal, Ph.D., as Inaugural Donald and Gabrielle McCree Endowed Professor of Business | Grossman School of Business | The University of Vermont

“The recognition inspires me to continue serving the Grossman School of Business and this venerable university with renewed vigor. More specifically, it inspires me to bolster my research and teaching efforts aimed at demonstrating how businesses can create wealth and widespread societal well-being. Thank you so much for this honor.” With these words, Dr. Srinivas Venugopal concluded his acceptance of the inaugural Donald and Gabrielle McCree Endowed Professor of Business.  

With an intimate ceremony, the University of Vermont (UVM) Grossman School of Business (GSB) invested Dr. Srinivas Venugopal in this prestigious position on January 31, 2025. The investiture was led by Grossman School of Business Dean Sanjay Sharma, with remarks by UVM President Patricia Prelock, and the generous donor of the position, UVM alum Don McCree ’83.  

The endowed faculty position is part of the latest example of the generosity and commitment of the McCrees. As part of their growing legacy at the university, this commitment further solidifies GSB’s reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent business schools by expanding its top-ranked Sustainable Innovation MBA (SI-MBA) and Master of Accountancy (MAcc) graduate programs, as well as areas of excellence in entrepreneurship, sustainable business, and family business. 

Appointment to an endowed position is among the highest academic honors the University of Vermont can bestow on a faculty member. Endowed chairs and professorships allow the university to recognize and celebrate academic achievement and further encourage scholarly and service excellence. Endowed faculty positions are a tribute to the holder and permanent legacies for the donors who establish them.

Srinivas Venugopal, Ph.D., The Donald and Gabrielle McCree Endowed Professor of Business

Dr. Srinivas Venugopal received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Anna University in India in 2005. Prior to pursuing an academic career, he was leading a technology-based social venture in Tamil Nadu, India, focused on delivering education services to low income, rural region consumers. Dr. Venugopal is also the founder of a non-profit called “Diya”, which provides supplementary education in the urban slums of Chennai, India – a social enterprise he continues to lead to this day. He completed his MBA and Ph.D. in Marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined UVM in 2016 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022. In 2024, he was named the Academic Director of the SI-MBA program.  

Dr. Venugopal research demonstrates how social innovation can serve as a potent tool in providing wellbeing enhancing solutions in contexts of poverty. Based on the data of diverse contexts of poverty spanning five continents, Dr. Venugopal has published 20 articles on social innovation, and he has won awards from the American Marketing Association and the Association of Consumer Research. He continues to teach courses focused on sustainable marketing and sustainable brand marketing and his impact at Grossman School has been immeasurable – demonstrated by his three consecutive years earning professor of the year from SI-MBA students.  

Dr. Srinivas Venugopal embodies the Grossman School of Business’s passion to help build better organizations and a better society, and we are proud to count him among our faculty.  He is a quintessential teacher-scholar, whose research and scholarship inform and enrich his teaching and mentorship.   

His work brings great distinction to the Grossman School of Business at the University of Vermont. The McCree Endowed Professor medallion symbolizes his continued pursuit of excellence in his field.    

A Legacy of Giving

Don and Gabby McCree’s generous gift established the McCree Endowed Professor of Business. Their vision and commitment to supporting business education will have a lasting impact. This gift enables Grossman School students to learn from an outstanding scholar whose research will enhance UVM’s academic reputation in the field of Marketing and Sustainable Business.  The holder of this chair will influence hundreds of lives through his teaching, research, mentoring, and community outreach.

Don McCree graduated from the University of Vermont in 1983 majoring in Economics and Political Science. His career includes over 30 years with JPMorgan Chase in a variety of leadership roles. Since 2015 he has been a senior executive at Citizens Financial Group where he currently holds the position of Senior Vice Chair and Head of Commercial Banking. Don has also been an exemplary volunteer leader for the University of Vermont and the UVM Foundation.  He has served on the UVM Foundation Board of Directors since its inception in 2011 and the UVM Board of Trustees since 2014.  In addition, Don is among the founding managers of the newly established University of Vermont Investment Management Company.  

Don’s volunteer leadership is mirrored by that of his wife, Gabby, who is the past chair and a current member of the board of trustees of her alma mater, Mary Baldwin University. Gabby has held several volunteer leadership positions with her church, has been a mentor of high school students from the Hunts Point Alliance Center in the Bronx, and is a long-time adult education teacher of English as a second language.  

Together they have been leading philanthropists at the University of Vermont since 2006 when they established the McCree Family Endowed Scholarship Fund to benefit students with financial need, a record of academic achievement, and active involvement in community service. During the University’s Move Mountains fundraising campaign, Don and Gabby decided to expand their philanthropic legacy by establishing the Donald and Gabrielle McCree Endowed Professorship of Business in the Grossman School of Business. 

The gift of this professorship is yet another example of the generosity that has enhanced the quality of the school’s reputation internationally as one of the top schools for entrepreneurship, family business, and sustainable business.

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Fundraising for the Grossman School of Business is a major focus for the University of Vermont Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established to secure and manage private support for the benefit of the University of Vermont. To inquire about making a gift to the Grossman School of Business, please contact Alex Brady at (770) 842-1510 or alex.brady@uvm.edu. More information about the impact of donors like Steven Grossman and the work of the UVM Foundation can be found at www.uvmfoundation.org. 

Event photos by Andy Duback.