Tim Munyon
Hitting the Right Notes
Tim Munyon loves jamming. A self-professed music hack, he sings and plays multiple instruments by ear, including the flute, drums, piano, saxophone, and penny whistle. This interest in music grew alongside Munyon’s career in higher education. “Music is cathartic,” he says. “When I play gigs, I get to turn off the serious side and do something fun and creative.”
He started playing saxophone as a child and performed with rock bands while living in Nashville and Tallahassee as a young adult. He has served in music ministry at local church congregations and now plays with Shadyland, a band consisting of fellow Haslam faculty members.
But music isn’t Munyon’s main gig. He began his professional career in human resources but quickly transitioned to aviation, where he worked as an airport planner and consultant, developing layout plans and evaluating environmental and economic impacts. “I loved that job because I got to meet a lot of different clients from different places,” he says. While Munyon worked full-time in North Carolina as an airport consultant, he and his wife, Summer, also began teaching part-time at a local university. “We were working crazy hours during the day and teaching three or four classes per semester at night,” Munyon says. “I loved it. That passion for teaching is what got me into academia.”
Munyon went on to earn a PhD in organizational behavior and taught management at two other universities before joining Haslam in 2012. Today, he serves as head of the college’s Department of Management and Entrepreneurship. He also holds the Ergen Professorship of Business and the Janet and Jeff Davis Faculty Fellowship on top of maintaining his research output. Recently, Munyon published a paper in the Academy of Management Journal showing that entrepreneurs can avoid negative career effects—the so-called founders’ penalty—by keeping a foot in the corporate world while starting a venture. “Even if they’re consulting on the side, that flips the script,” he explains. “With a hybrid approach, they often end up with better career trajectories than corporate employees.”
In addition to his higher education roles, Munyon is also a co-founder and former managing partner of Red Castle Human Capital, a workforce analytics consultancy. As a management professional and academic, he aims to help organizations see human capital as an asset, not a liability. “I want to change the narrative, so business leaders view employees as an investment,” he says. “It’s about helping organizations leverage human capital and helping people unlock their potential.”
Munyon also loves leading students to discover their strengths. “My greatest passion in higher education is students,” he says. “There are very few jobs where you can connect with people as powerfully as in academia.” As department head, Munyon hopes to foster an environment where both colleagues and students can continue to thrive.
