José Sartarelli

José V. “Zito” Sartarelli, Ph.D., exemplifies what a stellar career emphasizing excellence and ethics can be, with professional leadership and experience in both academia and the corporate world for over 42 years. He has been committed to attracting and working with outstanding professionals and has put that philosophy to work at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) where he was Chancellor for 7 years. While at UNCW Dr. Sartarelli kept the university the fastest growing in the state, enhanced online educational offerings, made UNCW’s Nursing program the largest in North Carolina, earned UNCW the designation “doctoral university with high research standing” and brought more than $770 million in resources to the institution. Prior to that he was the Mylan Puskar Dean of the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University (WVU) as well as Chief Global Officer. Dr. Sartarelli spent three decades in marketing and management for the international pharmaceutical industry. From 2001 to 2010, he worked for Johnson&Johnson as pharmaceutical group chair for Asia-Pacific, Japan and, Latin America. Prior to that he was with Bristol Myers-Squibb and Eli Lilly and Co. 

Having retired as Chancellor of UNCW in June of 2022, he spent the next one and a half years writing his autobiography “Giving Flight to Imagination”, focused on Leadership, Imagination and Excellence and how together they can take one’s career to new heights. Special attention was paid to Imagination and from that, his major advice: “Don’t clip the wings of your dreams- give them flight!” The autobiography has been published in English and Portuguese and distributed in both the U.S. and Brazil.