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James (Jim) Nolen

Distinguished Senior Lecturer

Department:     Finance

Additional Titles:     Associate Director of the Hicks Muse Tate and Furst Center for Private Equity Finance

James Jim Nolen Headshot
James Jim Nolen Headshot

Jim Nolen joined the Department of Finance in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and taught graduate and undergraduate classes in corporate finance and entrepreneurship until his retirement in May 2012. Professor Nolen returned to teaching part-time in the fall of 2013 where he is the faculty director for the Venture Fellows Program. Mr. Nolen has also taught at IMEDEC University in Vienna, the ITESM Executive MBA Program in Mexico City, Finland’s TURKU School of Economics, Spain’s ESADE Executive MBA program and the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School’s Executive MBA program in San Paulo, Brazil.

Jim Nolen is the two-time recipient of the Fawn and Vijay Mahajan Award in Executive Education. He has also been awarded the Mary and Hank Harkin Award for Effective Undergraduate Teaching and the Joe D. Beasley Award for MBA Teaching. Professor Nolen made the Graduate Faculty Teaching Honor Roll every semester since its inception in 1999 through 2012. Mr. Nolen was also selected for a teaching award from the Graduate Business Council at graduation every year from 1999 until his retirement. In 2011, Professor Nolen was named as one of the top ten most popular MBA professors by Bloomberg/Businessweek.

Professor Nolen has designed and taught in both public and custom programs in Executive Education including: Dell, Texas Instruments, BMC Software, Rackspace, Motorola/Freescale, USAA, St. Jude Medical, Biotronik, Baylor Scott & White Healthcare, Essilor, Lineage Power, M.D. Anderson, Shell Oil, PetSmart, Sinopec, Vought Aircraft, Zachry, Construction Institute, National Oilwell Varco, Axalto, and Fedex among others.

Professor Nolen is President of CFO Services, Inc., a middle-market business consulting firm specializing in business valuations, raising capital, as well as merger and acquisition advisory services. He also serves on the boards of directors of an independent community bank, , an enterprise software company, a pre-employment testing company and a general contractor. He previous served on the boards of a medical distribution company, a recycling firm, a healthcare internet company and an ecommerce company. Mr. Nolen has owned and operated a printing operation, and he has managed a waste management company as well as an industrial lighting company.