Chief Executive and President, Pepperdine University

Gash became Pepperdine University’s eighth president in August 2019. Pepperdine has five graduate and undergraduate schools and offers 82 degree programs for its 10,450 enrolled students. Pepperdine placed No. 49 out of 387 national universities in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings. In September, Pepperdine was awarded a $10 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. A Pepperdine Law School alum who was editor-in-chief of its Law Review, Gash joined the law school faculty in 1999. In between his Pepperdine Law School endeavors, he clerked for Judge Edith Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked for law firm Kirkland & Ellis.

YEARS ON THE LA500: 4