AT&T Pledges $25 Million to McCombs for New Executive Education and Conference Center
At a ceremony held June 12 AT&T pledged a $25 million gift to the McCombs School to be applied to the construction cost of the new Executive Education and Conference Center. “We are grateful to be the recipients of this major gift from AT&T,” said Dean George Gau. “It is a credit to our faculty, staff and students that a company of this reputation, history and market standing has chosen to make such a significant investment in our executive education efforts.” The center, opening in August 2008, will be named the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center for the next 25 years.
Read the press release.
Read the story in the Austin American-Statesman.
Read the story in the San Antonio Express-News.
Read the story in the Financial Times.

Twelve Faculty to Join McCombs in Fall 2007; Fredrickson Named Director of Teaching
In Fall 2007, 12 new tenure-track faculty will join the McCombs School of Business. The Finance Department will add assistant professors Clemens Sialm and Francisco Perez-Gonzalez. IROM hired Rohit Deo as a visiting associate professor and Canan Ulu, Kumar Muthuraman and Dain Donelson as assistant professors. The Management Department will add assistant professors Jennifer Whitson and Emily Amanatullah. Assistant professors Ty Henderson, Raghunath Rao, Jade Sturdy and Ying Zhang, will join the Marketing Department. In other faculty news, Jim Fredrickson (photo), professor of management, has accepted the position as the school’s first director of teaching development.

Texas Exes Gives Awards to Four Incoming Freshman
Four future McCombs freshman will receive four-year Texas Exes Awards for Scholarship and Leadership. Valedictorian Whitney Bruns from San Antonio participated in the McCombs Young Leaders Entrepreneurial Academy in summer 2006 and now plans to major in finance and Spanish. National Merit Scholar Ishwariah Panneerselvam of Plano founded a Habitat for Humanity chapter and was admitted to the McCombs School of Business Honors Program. National Hispanic Scholar Katina Rajunov will major in business honors and government. She was president and founder of two organizations, Helping Others Promote Equality and Peer Mediation, at her San Antonio high school. Austin Stevenson was president of the Speech and Debate team and involved in the Youth and Government Organization at Rockwall High School in Rockwall.
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Eyeing the Future, Brazilian Oil Company Partners
With McCombs and Jackson School
The McCombs School of Business, in partnership with the Jackson School of Geosciences, recently hosted a three-month custom executive education program for a team of Brazilian oil executives. The executives all work for Brazil’s Petróleo Brasileiro, S.A, also known as Petrobras. The program, “Business Acumen for the Energy Executive,” was a Texas Executive Education course designed to meet the company’s unique needs.
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In the News: Dell Announces Layoffs
KVUE-TV, June 1, 2007
Round Rock-based computer giant Dell announced that it will cut 10 percent of its work force, about 8,800 jobs, over the next year. The cuts will vary across geographic regions and job functions. John Doggett, senior management lecturer, said there is strong reason for optimism though. Since Michael Dell retook the reins of the company, the CEO has helped reshape the company from the inside-out. “I’ve talked to a lot of people, from very senior members of his management team to new people who have just joined who are former students of mine, and they all say Michael is excited about what the company is doing. He is reengaged, and this has his fingerprints.”
Watch the video.

Golden to Serve on UT Austin’s Policy and Planning Advisory Council
Linda Golden, professor of marketing, has been appointed to serve as a council member for the Policy and Planning Advisory Council, a new university-wide council established to advise the president of The University of Texas at Austin and to develop a strategic and business plan for the university. The council is needed to consider major issues affecting the university’s long-term goals, major budget issues and priorities, and strategic decisions.

In the News: Lifting the Veil on Tax Risk
The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2007
Hundreds of companies could be on the hook to the Internal Revenue Service for tens of billions of dollars in back taxes due to transactions companies believe could be challenged, newly required regulatory disclosures show. Investors are getting a first peek into one aspect of the world of corporate taxes, thanks to a new accounting rule that took effect in January. Jennifer Blouin of the University of Pennsylvania, Cristi Gleason of the University of Iowa, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Accounting Professor Lillian Mills (photo) and Ph.D. candidate Stephanie Sikes, examined the newly disclosed tax liabilities at 100 large companies and compared those with their book assets. Merck’s total unrecognized tax benefit topped the list under that analysis, with an amount equal to 16.6 percent of its assets. By contrast, GE’s total unrecognized tax benefit was a similar size, but it represented about 1 percent of its total assets. GE’s reported $6.8 billion liability doesn't include $1.4 billion in accrued interest and penalties. An ExxonMobil spokesman said its unrecognized tax benefit of $3.7 billion represented a fraction of last year’s tax bill of about $30 billion.
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In the News: The Wealth of African Nations
Harvard Business Review, June 2007
Marketing Professor Vijay Mahajan contributed an article to the June edition of Harvard Business Review about his ongoing research on business and entrepreneurship across Africa. Mahajan, who is working on a book about Africa, writes, “Africa has some of the poorest nations in the world, but it is wealthier across the continent than India. That concentration of wealth represents a huge potential market for companies worldwide. Of course, serving this market means overcoming the myriad economic, political, legal, medical and social challenges. But businesses across Africa have already proved that this is possible, feeding a fast-growing demand for every conceivable type of consumer good and service.”

In the News: Nasdaq Wants to Compete More Directly with NYSE
Houston Chronicle, June 14, 2007
The head of Nasdaq was in Houston recently, trying to lure companies to his market and away from the New York Stock Exchange. Traditionally the market of choice for technology and small and mid-sized companies, the Nasdaq has been stepping up efforts to compete head-to-head with the NYSE. Competition between the two exchanges has heated up because both are publicly traded and face increasing pressure from investors to demonstrate growth, said Sandy Leeds, senior finance lecturer.
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In the News: Experts React to Proposal for New Regulatory Body for Financial Products
Dallas Morning News, June 24, 2007
In a recent paper, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren proposed the creation of a Financial Product Safety Commission. Warren, a nationally respected expert on bankruptcy and consumer-finance issues, is calling for a new regulatory regime to review credit card offers, home mortgages, car loans and a host of other financial products for consumer safety issues. Creating a whole new federal regulatory agency would be expensive, said Robert Prentice, IROM professor, and regulators are “often only marginally competent. Unintended consequences abound when regulators enter the picture.” However, the proposal is worthy of consideration, Prentice said. “Well-regulated markets allow well-intentioned and fair firms to distinguish themselves and thereby prosper,” he said.
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In the News: Retailers are Turning Green—Even Wal-Mart and Home Depot
MarketWatch, May 17, 2007
The environment is a growing concern for retailers across the country as they feel pressure to cut energy use, curb carbon emissions and slash waste. In the process they encourage suppliers to develop eco-friendly products and practices, helping—or in some cases persuading—consumers to shop and live green. “Because of the nature of their size, and the challenges we have facing us, not just presented by global climate change but in terms of sustainability in general, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to make a difference and start taking steps in terms of the way they do business,” said Paula Ivey, McCombs marketing lecturer.
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Entrepreneur Discusses Lessons Learned While Building a New Business
Every new business is different. Each has its own, unique product, competitors and customers, which require various growth strategies. But when starting a company, there are also a few universal lessons to be learned. David Altounian, the founder of Motion Computing and CEO of iTaggit Inc., recently spoke about these key learnings at the McCombs MBA Alumni Network’s Austin Chapter breakfast May 31.
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