Oubré to lead Whittier College

Linda Oubré, a businesswoman and dean of the College of Business at San Francisco State, will serve as Whittier College’s 15th president starting in July, the school announced Monday.

She will be the first person of color to lead the liberal arts college.

At San Francisco State, Oubré more than tripled fundraising, Whittier’s announcement said. She led a curricular review and created a new executive master of business administration program.

Jim Brown, chairman of Whittier’s board of trustees, said Oubré’s leadership at San Francisco State “resulted in transformative outcomes for underrepresented students of color.”

She also served as executive director of corporate relations and business development and chief diversity officer for the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis.

Oubré made a name for herself in business. She co-founded BriteSmile, a publicly traded tooth-whitening company.

Before BriteSmile, she worked two stints at the L.A. Times and its former parent company. From 1985 to 1988, she was Times Mirror Co.'s manager for corporate planning, a finance role in which she oversaw acquisitions of the Baltimore Sun and Los Angeles Times Magazine. In the 1990s, she worked as a general manager of new business development for The Times.

She won the Trailblazer Award for her accomplishments in business from the San Francisco chapter of the Council of 100 Black Women. She holds an MBA and a doctorate in higher education management.

Oubré will succeed Sharon Herzberger, who served as president since 2005. Herzberger is best known for expanding diversity on campus and overseeing Whittier’s largest capital project. Under her leadership, the school increased its undergraduate enrollment by more than one-fifth.

She also steered the school through turbulent times. In April 2017, Whittier officials announced that their affiliated law school — hit by both a nationwide dip in law school applicants and low student achievement — would be closing.