Michael Hartline

Michael D. Hartline has served as dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Business since April 2016. He leads an accomplished family of faculty, staff, students and alumni in pursuit of the college’s “Path to Preeminence” with a focus on student success, faculty and staff development, research excellence, preeminent academic programs, and alumni and donor engagement. He works closely with university leadership, trustees, and external stakeholders to align college and university priorities and to translate academic strengths into preeminent outcomes. Today, many of the college’s academic programs rank in the Top 25 of public schools, with most in the Top 20 and several in the Top 5. His work centers on strengthening academic quality while building the external partnerships and philanthropic support necessary to sustain long term institutional impact. Over the past decade, he has helped secure more than $290 million in philanthropic support for college and university initiatives.

In 2022, Dean Hartline served as Interim Vice President for University Advancement and Interim Executive Vice President and President of the FSU Foundation, providing institution wide leadership during a period of transition. Earlier, as interim dean, he played a central role in securing a $100 million gift from Jan Moran and The Jim Moran Foundation, which led to the expansion of the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship and the creation of the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, the nation’s largest stand alone, interdisciplinary entrepreneurship college. Recently, Dean Hartline played a leading role in securing a $65 million investment from Dr. Herbert Wertheim to name the college and its new facility, the Herbert Wertheim Center for Business Excellence.

As the college's associate dean for strategic initiatives from 2011 to 2015, he was responsible for external relations, marketing/branding, executive education and strategic programs. He was involved in strategic planning and innovation and had oversight of many fiscal matters and operations, including technology infrastructure and the physical plant. He served as chair of the college’s Building Program Committee, acting as liaison to university administration and the broader community. From 2006 to 2011 serving as chair of the college’s Rockwood School of Marketing, he worked to enhance private funding, implemented shared governance, established formal faculty evaluation and merit guidelines, created an annual strategic planning process and launched a major in professional sales and a Master of Science in Marketing program.

Before coming to Florida State, he was an associate professor of marketing at Samford University's Brock School of Business from 1999 to 2001, assistant professor of marketing at Louisiana State University's E.J Ourso College of Business from 1994 to 1999 and assistant professor of marketing and advertising at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s College of Business from 1992 to 1994.

Dean Hartline has authored or co-authored numerous books and articles, including several publications in top-tier journals. He has served on the editorial review boards of several academic journals, made numerous presentations to industry and academic audiences and co-chaired two international conferences for the American Marketing Association. He is the former vice president of development for the Academy of Marketing Science. He has won numerous teaching and research awards, has taught MBA courses in marketing strategy and corporate reputation management, and taught undergraduate courses in services marketing and retailing. He also has served as a consultant to several for-profit and nonprofit organizations in the areas of marketing plan development, market feasibility analysis, customer satisfaction measurement, customer service training and pricing strategy. His research interests include customer-contact issues in service delivery, service quality and productivity, new service development and non-ownership consumption.

Dean Hartline earned a Ph.D. in business administration from the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis, and an MBA and bachelor's in marketing, both from Jacksonville State University (Alabama). He resides in Tallahassee with his wife, Dr. Marsha Hartline, Associate Dean for Student Affairs at the FSU College of Nursing. They have three daughters: Meghan (a speech therapist), Madison (a high school history teacher), and Mallory (a registered nurse). They also have one grandson, Maxwell. Dr. Hartline is a self-professed electronics and gadget enthusiast who enjoys music, reading, computers, travel, college football (Go Seminoles!), being a dad, and being a grandfather (aka Grumps) to Max.