Academic Appointments
Prof. Santoro has been a Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University since 2016. Previously he was a Professor at the Rutgers Business School and a Research Associate at Harvard Business School. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Zurich, the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the University of Notre Dame.
Education
Prof. Santoro holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University, a J.D. from New York University, and an A.B. from Oberlin College and was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
Editorial and Leadership Activities
In 2000, Prof. Santoro testified in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in support of China’s entry into the WTO. More recently, in 2019, he led a panel on scholar activism at the United Nations Global Forum on Business and Human Rights. Prof. Santoro is a founding Co-Editor of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and Co-Founder and first President of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association. He also serves on the editorial boards of Business Ethics Quarterly and the Journal of Human Rights. He is Co-Director (with Linda Goler Blount of the Black Women’s Health Imperative) of the Leavey School of Business Tech2Equity Partnership formed to help reduce racial disparities in health care.
Publications
In addition to authoring numerous peer-reviewed articles and case studies in fields as diverse as Health Care, Operations Management, Business Ethics, China Studies, and Human Rights, Prof. Santoro is the author of four books: Wall Street Values: Business Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis by Michael A. Santoro and Ronald J. Strauss (Cambridge University Press, 2013); China 2020: How Western Business Can–and Should–Influence Social and Political Change in the Coming Decade (Cornell University Press, 2009); Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry, Michael A. Santoro and Thomas M. Gorrie, Editors (Cambridge University Press 2005); and Profits and Principles: Global Capitalism and Human Rights in China (Cornell University Press, 2000). Prof. Santoro is under contract to write three additional books— (with Robert Shanklin) Tea with The Dragon: Traditional Chinese Culture and Contemporary Chinese Business Ethics (Routledge Press); Silicon Valley Ethics (Bristol University Press); and (with Robert Shanklin) Pragmatism and Business Ethics (Cambridge University Press).
Consulting
Prof. Santoro has served as an ethics consultant to non-profits such as the International Foundation for Autoimmune & Autoinflammatory Arthritis and GBC Health (formerly the Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS/Malaria and Tuberculosis). He has conducted corporate ethics training programs for a number of international companies, including Sandvik (Sweden) and A to Z (Tanzania) where he helped draft one of first business codes of conduct in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prof. Santoro’s consulting practice has also included work in a number of high-profile court cases that involve complex issues of corporate governance and ethics. He served as an expert witness in Fagin v. Scolnick, et al.), a shareholder-derivative suit against corporate officers and directors of Merck & Co., Inc. for marketing Vioxx unethically which the New York Times called a potentially “pivotal moment in the corporate governance arena.” As part of the Fagin settlement, Merck agreed to adopt a far-ranging series of corporate governance reforms which he helped to design, including the appointment of its first Chief Medical Officer. More recently, Prof. Santoro gave expert testimony about the corporate governance reforms undertaken at Wells Fargo’s in the wake of the scandal over the creation of bogus customer accounts. The presiding judge in the case wrote that “Professor Santoro cogently explains why these changes, in many instances long overdue, will benefit shareholders by reducing the likelihood of future misconduct.”
Personal
Prof. Santoro lives in Santa Clara, CA with his wife Robyn, their twin boys Jack and Guy, and their cat Wilhelmina.
Last updated: July 2020
