Harvard Business School Professor Peter Tufano ’79 will leave Harvard next year to become Dean of the Saïd Business School at Oxford.

Tufano said his decision to leave Harvard stems from his desire to play a key role in the development of the school.

“Whereas Harvard Business School is a wonderful business school with a 100 plus year history, Saïd Business School is 15 years old,” Tufano said. “It’s still a young entrepreneurial firm that has lots of future and I want to help shape that future.”

Tufano will replace the current Saïd Business School Dean, Colin Mayer, on July 1, 2011.

Tufano has had a long history at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude from the College in economics and earning his MBA and Ph.D from Harvard’s graduate schools.

Tufano has now taught at the Business School for 22 years and has developed three original classes at Harvard.

“In his time here Peter contributed tremendously to the intellectual capacity of the school through his teaching and research,” Business School Dean Nitin Nohria wrote in an e-mail statement. “He brought keen management insight to his administrative duties and was one of our most important ambassadors to the rest of the University.”

Oxford officials praised Tufano’s academic reputation and record of forging collaborations at Harvard.

“These achievements, combined with his impressive teaching experience and commitment to use rigorous business research to improve business and regulatory practice, make him the ideal person to lead the school,” Professor Andrew D. Hamilton, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said in a statement.

Tufano said he plans on teaching his spring class with Harvard Law School professor Howell E. Jackson and continue developing the Harvard Innovation Lab in Allston, a project announced by the Business School earlier this year, until his departure.

Tufano, who wrote the original proposal for the lab and co-chairs the Allston Work Team, said he hopes it will serve as a site for innovation and entrepreneurship among students from across the University.

“I will work as hard as I can to make sure that that’s a reality before I leave this campus,” Tufano said.

Tufano said there was always a chance that he might one day return to Harvard.

“It’s the university that I have grown up at and I care for deeply,” Tufano said of Harvard. “But for the moment I have a challenge ahead of me that I’m looking forward to.”

—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.