Robert William Funk

Robert William “Bill” Funk is the best known and most widely respected consultant serving higher education. He has conducted approximately 400 searches for college and university Presidents and Chancellors. Among the nearly 70 currently sitting Presidents he has helped recruit, are many of the nation’s most respected and admired university chief executives, including: Michael V. Drake, President of The Ohio State University; Carol Folt, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Robert ‘Bobby’ Robbins, President of the University of Arizona; G.P. ‘Bud’ Peterson, President of Georgia Tech; Douglas Girod, Chancellor of the University of Kansas; Robert Barchi, President of Rutgers University; Ruth Watkins, President of the University of Utah; Renu Khator, President of the University of Houston; Neeli Bendapudi, President of the University of Louisville; and James Clements, President of Clemson University, among many others.

He has been called the “guru of higher education recruiting” by The Chronicle of Higher Educationand is listed as one of the 200 best executive recruiters in the world in The Global 200 Executive Recruiters: An Essential Guide to the Best Recruiters in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America (Jossey-Bass, Inc). On Wisconsin, a University of Wisconsin publication, proclaimed in an article that “…Funk is higher education’s ultimate insider, its answer to the Kevin Bacon game: his list of friends and acquaintances includes the top officials at nearly every major American university. Pick any school on the map and you’re likely to find no more than a few degrees of Bill Funk. He has become the most highly regarded search consultant in higher education.”