Charla Griffy-Brown

Charla Griffy-Brown serves as director general, dean, and professor of global digital transformation at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, as of July 1, 2024. She first joined Thunderbird in August 2023 as vice dean and professor. An accomplished professor, board member, and consultant, she leads transformational change through her expertise in digital innovation, helping organizations leverage new opportunities through analytics, risk evaluation, and emerging technology deployment to achieve their strategic objectives.

From the earliest days of her life, Griffy-Brown has been a global citizen. Born to a first-generation immigrant mother and foster-adopted from Los Angeles County, her journey reflects a lifelong commitment to global engagement and interdisciplinary development. After graduating from Harvard University, she spent her summers working for NASA. She then embarked on a Fulbright Fellowship in Japan, where she met her Australian husband. They moved to Australia, completed their doctorate degrees, and she then had the privilege of working in India, China, and Indonesia.

Returning to Japan, Griffy-Brown worked as an associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and at the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development, Tokyo. Her career includes significant contributions to both academia and industry, working on complex multinational projects with the European Commission, the United Nations Global Environmental Facility, the Pacific Telecommunications Council, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

Griffy-Brown has served as a visiting fellow at Tsinghua University in China, Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan, and Jyväskylä University in Finland. As the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Technology in Society, she has led the global scholarly discourse on the social impacts of technological change, publishing over 100 manuscripts, book chapters, and books.
Griffy-Brown is a former Fulbright Scholar, and holds a doctorate degree in technology management from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. She has worked for NASA in programming at the Kennedy Space Center and served as a consultant for the United Nations Global Environmental Facility and the European Commission.

Her background includes over 25 years of dedicated experience working with executive boards and leading-edge technology companies. She created significant growth, stronger rankings, and impact as a leader at the Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business before joining Thunderbird. Her cross-sectoral leadership engaging government, academia, and industry reflects her commitment to the interdisciplinary development of global and digital leaders.

In addition to her current work in higher education, Griffy-Brown has been a featured speaker sponsored by the U.S. State Department in transitional economies such as Bangladesh and Bulgaria. She has worked with government advisors and heads of state, as well as CIOs from the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FDIC, and NASA. Her research, consulting, and workshops with companies such as Coca-Cola Reyes, Honda, Hilton Hotels, and Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne/Boeing demonstrate her unique skill set in expanding perspectives on technology deployment to achieve strategic objectives.

Griffy-Brown has received numerous accolades, including the Outstanding Leadership Award and the George Award for her work in data privacy and cyber risk at Pepperdine University. Recognized as one of Pepperdine’s outstanding faculty with the Howard A. White Teaching Award, she has also received special congressional recognition for her contributions to helping small and medium-sized companies and nonprofits address cyber risk.

With extensive experience living and working in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and the United States,  Griffy-Brown brings a global perspective to her engagements, enabling her to identify and solve mission-critical problems and design strategy. Her published work, funded by prestigious endowments and grants, solidifies her standing as a thought leader in her field.