Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
These are difficult times for elite universities. Controversies over the handling of pro-Palestine protests on campus cost several school presidents their jobs; under the Trump administration, federal research grants have plunged; and just 42 percent of Americans polled by Gallup in 2025 reported confidence in higher ed, down from 57 percent in 2015, the first year the poll was conducted. Just this month, Yale University released a report acknowledging prestigious schools’ role in losing the public’s trust.
So why is Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, thoroughly enjoying a role that has frustrated or felled many of his peers? Diermeier, who became chancellor (the equivalent of a CEO) in 2020, believes he’s cracked the code to leading unwieldy institutions: Avoid politicization and stick to one’s core purpose. And those are lessons he thinks corporate leaders should apply to running businesses.
By many measures, Diermeier’s approach is working. Undergraduate applications rose 12.6 percent in 2025, and the school saw a 20 percent jump in early-decision applicants—a metric of a school’s desirability. Indeed, Vanderbilt now admits just 4.7 percent of applicants, making it more selective than Cornell or Dartmouth. Under Diermeier’s direction, the Nashville-based school is expanding, with a new campus opening in New York City and campuses planned in West Palm Beach, Florida; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and San Francisco.
Diermeier also has his detractors. A February Chronicle of Higher Education feature called him the sector’s “most divisive” chancellor, noting that Diermeier’s embrace of institutional neutrality has been seen by critics as a capitulation to “bad-faith critiques” of universities.
Before arriving at Vanderbilt, Diermeier was provost at the University of Chicago, whose “Chicago Principles” on freedom of expression mirror Vanderbilt’s Statement of Principles. Prior to becoming provost, he was a University of Chicago dean and professor, where he taught and researched crisis and reputation management.
I sat down with Diermeier to talk about how he thinks about leadership in a polarized moment—and what his experience running a major research university might mean for CEOs facing the same turbulent terrain. Edited excerpts follow:
