The School of Commerce and Finance was established at Indiana University in 1920 with Professor William A. Rawles as dean. Since then, the school has grown from an initial enrollment of 70 students to over 8,000 students in undergraduate, graduate, and online programs, on two campuses, both full- and part-time. In 2006, the school's undergraduate curriculum was ranked 4th in the nation among public university business programs.

The School has held several names in its history. In 1938, the school was officially designated the School of Business. In 1997, during Dean Dalton's tenure, it was renamed the Kelley School of Business after alumnus and former chairman of the Steak 'n Shake restaurant chain, E.W. Kelley. This coincided with Kelley's donation of $23 million for the establishment of the Kelley Scholars program in the School of Business.

Jack R. Wentworth first came to IU as an undergraduate, where he received his bachelor's degree in business in 1950. He later went on to receive his MBA and doctorate in business from IU, in 1954 and 1959, respectively. In 1959, Wentworth joined the faculty at the School of Business, first taking on the administrative reins as the Acting Dean of the school when Dean Schuyler Otteson retired at the end of 1982. Wentworth served in this capacity through part of 1983 before stepping down, but Wentworth soon found himself back in charge as head administrator, having been selected as permanent dean in March 1984. Wentworth's tenure continued over a period of over nine years, and during that period of time substantial changes occurred at the School of Business, both administratively and in the programs offered. Wentworth stepped down as dean in June 1993, but remained on the active faculty at the School for several years afterward.

In 1984, early in Dean Wentworth's tenure, major organizational and academic changes were enacted in the School of Business. A separate "Office of the Dean" was created and three associate dean positions were created in support of the Dean. These associate positions included an associate dean of research and operations, an associate dean of professional programs, and an associate dean of academics. Along with this administrative restructuring was the initiative to consolidate some of the academic departments within the school, folding the smaller ones into the larger ones.

Aside from the administrative reorganization, Dean Wentworth's deanship was distinguished by the establishment of new centers and institutes within the School of Business. Included among these are the Center for Global Business, the Center for Real Estate Studies and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The School of Business also made a concerted push to bring an international perspective to its curricular portfolio by creating a number of overseas student experiences. Some of the places available for overseas study included Tilburg University in the Netherlands (later at the University of Maastricht), Santiago, Chile; Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Hong Kong. These programs quickly became very popular with the business students at I.U.

In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when countries in Central and Eastern Europe were emerging from the longtime control of the Soviet Union, the School of Business became extensively involved in efforts to provide management training and education in economics for businesspeople and business teachers in these countries. The initiatives that emerged from this focus included the Hungarian International Management Institute and serving as a founding member of the M.B.A. Enterprise Corps, which sent graduate students to Eastern Europe to assist with local businesses. The Soviet Union itself was also a focus of efforts by the School of Business faculty, with several of them being sent there for consulting work in Soviet cities.

During Wentworth's tenure, the Indianapolis campus underwent extensive restructuring, resulting in more organizational independence for administrators and faculty at IUPUI, and in the creation of new master's programs for students local to the area. In Bloomington, the MBA program also underwent major revisions, which resulted in a very different program structure and curriculum. Partly as a consequence of these changes, the MBA program rose to a top-10 ranking among similar programs nationwide.