Jindal School Professor Earns Second Top Award from D CEO

by Jimmie Markham - May 19th, 2017 - Alumni, Corporate, Events, Faculty/Research

Dennis McCuistion with the 2017 Excellence in Corporate Governance Award (Photo by Matthew Shelley and courtesy of D CEO )

From the left:) The late Constantine (Connie) Konstans with Dennis McCuisition and A. Carl Mudd at a 2010 IECG research symposium

D CEO magazine recently selected Naveen Jindal School of Management faculty member Dennis McCuistion as one of the top financial executives in North Texas for 2017. The magazine awarded him the top spot in the Excellence in Corporate Governance category.

McCuistion, clinical professor and executive director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance, also won the award in 2014.

“Even though I get the awards, a lot of credit goes to our staff, advisory board and members,” he said. “We have a great staff and an outstanding 15-person board. They all have been very instrumental in helping expand the product that we’re delivering here at the IECG.”

Dr. Hasan Pirkul, Jindal School dean and Caruth Chair, has been very supportive of the institute, McCuistion said. He and the late Professor Constantine (Connie) Konstans (1935-2013), who founded the IECG, were instrumental in turning it into “the leader in corporate governance in this part of the world,” McCuistion said.

A former bank CEO, McCuistion also has served on more than a dozen public, private and not-for-profit boards. Although most people are asked to serve on a board for their expertise in a specific business area like accounting, finance, manufacturing, marketing, sales or operations, he believes that having knowledge about governance will inform the decisions made in all those areas and keep board members from making mistakes.

“I’m usually selected for my expertise in corporate governance,” he said. “Typically I go on those boards because they’ve got a governance problem.”

In addition to his teaching and administrative duties, McCuistion hosts and is executive producer of a long-running, eponymous TV show on KERA. He sees it as an avenue for helping to promote the work being done at UT Dallas.

Even so, work the IECG does, can speak for itself, he said, as evidenced by the awards given to its members by D CEO in multiple years.

JSOM faculty members have won five Top Financial Executives awards from D CEO since the awards’ inception in 2011, including Konstans, accounting adjunct lecturer Roy Rumbough and Richard Bowen, a senior lecture in accounting.

“We want to keep achieving what we’re achieving, and if other people recognize our success, we’re grateful for that,” he said. “We’re grateful for the recognition that D CEO has given us with these awards.”