Photo courtesy of Harvard Business School.

The man who grew Harvard Business School into a giant of executive education has died.

John H. MacArthur passed away on Aug. 20, according to a statement from the school.

Born in British Columbia in 1934, MacArthur led HBS from 1980 to 1995, nearly doubling the number of endowed professorships, growing the annual budget for research and course development from $10 million to $50 million and increasing the HBS endowment from $106 million to $600 million.

“John felt strongly the responsibility he carried as leader of HBS,” Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School, said in a statement. “He cared deeply about every member of the HBS community and believed in the school’s ability to transform lives. By encouraging us all to dream big dreams – in effect, spurring our intellectual ambition – he set the school on a remarkable trajectory.”

McArthur is credited with building the faculty through the recruitment and promotion of outstanding faculty members, strengthening research, enhancing the school’s executive education program and launching initiatives in ethics and social enterprise. He also oversaw a major campus master planning and renewal effort, restructured the school’s publishing arm to expand the reach and impact of the school and its thought leadership throughout the world, and launched a revamp of its MBA program.

For many years, he also served as chair of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and was the moving force behind the 1994 merger of BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital to create Partners HealthCare. He later served as the founding co-chair of the merged entity’s board.

In addition to BWH, McArthur was a director of organizations including Chase Manhattan, Cabot, Rohm and Haas Co., Springs Industries Inc., Telsat Canada, Bell Canada and Teradyne Inc. He was a founding board member of the Canada Development Investment Corp. and a member of the Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services Sector.