New Stanford Dean

Robert Joss, former chief executive and managing director of Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp. and a former Treasury Department official, was named the new dean Wednesday of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Joss, who received both an MBA and PhD from Stanford, succeeds Michael Spence, who announced last year he would leave his post this August. Joss stepped down last month from Westpac, Australia’s second-largest bank.

“In Bob Joss we have a dean who combines a PhD with wide experience in business and government, both in the U.S. and abroad,” Stanford President Gerhard Casper said.

Before joining Westpac, Joss served as vice chairman at Wells Fargo & Co., now part of Minneapolis-based Norwest Corp, and also worked as deputy to the assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department.