Mendoza School of Business

Dean’s Speaker Series

The Dean’s Speaker Series is a leadership-focused series featuring respected senior executives from top global companies across diverse industries. Through engaging discussions, the leaders share their unique insights on careers, global trends, effective leadership and emerging issues affecting business and society. The series is sponsored by the Burns Family endowment.

Find the schedule for the new Dean’s Speaker Series below.

Please contact Jean Meade with any questions.

 

2024

12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Jordan Auditorium

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Byron Spruell

Byron Spruell

As President, League Operations at the National Basketball Association, Byron Spruell oversees critical league operations, including domestic and international Basketball Operations, Referee Operations and Basketball Strategy & Analytics. With effective integration of these departments, he is principally responsible for the processes regarding the management of rule changes, the development, evaluation, and training of game officials, the enforcement of conduct standards and discipline, and the application of analytics, innovation and strategy on the future evolution of the game.  Spruell also collaborates with USA Basketball and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to promote the global growth of the game and development of players worldwide.

Prior to joining the NBA in August 2016, Spruell spent 20 years at Deloitte LLP, most recently as its Vice Chairman, Central Region Market Leader.  Spruell, who grew up in Cleveland, earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in finance from the University of Notre Dame.  He was an offensive lineman and co-captain of the Fighting Irish’s football team and currently serves on the University’s Board of Trustees and as an Advisor on the Monogram Club.  Spruell met his wife, Sedra, at Notre Dame.  They have a son, Devyn, and a daughter, Aleah.

11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Jordan Auditorium
The Moral and Economic Advantages of Customer Capitalism

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Fred Reichheld

Named by The Economist as the “high priest” of loyalty, Fred Reichheld is the creator of the Net Promoter System℠ (NPS®) and one of the world’s leading experts on customer and employee loyalty. The best-selling author of five books on loyalty, he is a fellow at Bain & Company and founder of Bain’s Loyalty practice, which helps companies achieve results through customer and employee loyalty.

His latest book, coauthored with Bain’s Darci Darnell and Maureen Burns, is Winning on Purpose (Harvard Business Press, 2021). In the book, Fred reveals how NPS practitioners, including Apple Retail, Philips, Charles Schwab, Allianz, American Express and Intuit, have utilized this system to generate extraordinary results. They also explain how NPS helps companies become truly customer-centric, unleashing profitable growth by systematically converting more customers into promoters and fewer into detractors.

12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Jordan Auditorium

The Business of History and the History of Business

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is the William P. Reynolds Professor of History
Professor Fernandez-Armesto’s research projects include the history of primatology, of language and of cultural organisms. His current undergraduate classes on global history, environmental history, early colonial Native Mesoamerican source materials, history of exploration, Columbus, and the history of wisdom.

2023

11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Jordan Auditorium

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Dan Helfrich

Dan Helfrich is chair and chief executive officer of Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he leads a growing team of 85,000+ professionals who help clients innovatively face today’s most complex issues. A pioneer in purpose-driven leadership, Dan harnesses the collective, diversified power of his team to create lasting value for clients and society. ​He is an advocate for inclusive culture and continuous innovation and empowers his teams to challenge orthodoxies, collaborate across borders, and take a modern and nimble approach to problem-solving.

With over two decades of experience fueling effective and efficient organizations, Dan leverages his broad influence to inspire others to perform at their best. He remains actively engaged with clients, business partners, and market leaders, frequently sharing his perspective on issues including the evolving nature of the consulting profession, the future of work, and inclusive leadership. Prior to this role, Dan led Deloitte’s  Government & Public Services team fueling customer-centric transformation for state, local, and federal government agencies.

3-4 p.m.
Jordan Auditorium

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Arthur Brooks

Arthur C. Brooks, Author, Columnist and Harvard Professor
Moving from Strength to Strength in Work, Life & Happiness

 

 

 

 

2022

Feb. 25
11am – 12pm
Jordan Auditorium
A Conversation with Marcus Freeman, the Dick Corbett Head Football Coach

Freeman was announced as the 30th head coach in the history of Notre Dame Football on December 3, 2021. He first joined Notre Dame in 2021 as the defensive coordinator, and previously served as a defensive coach at the University of Cincinnati, Purdue University and Kent State.

As a college player, Freeman was a four-year letter winner for Ohio State from 2004 to 2008, helping to lead the Buckeyes to four conference titles, three BCS bowls and two trips to the national title game. His NFL career included playing for the Chicago Bears, the Buffalo Bills and the Houston Texans.

He graduated from Ohio State in 2007 and returned to the classroom to earn his master’s degree in sports management from Ohio State in 2011. Freeman and his wife, Joanna, have six children: Vinny, Siena, Gino, Nico, Capri and Rocco.

Oct. 11
3 – 4 pm
Jordan Auditorium
O’Hara’s Heirs: The Mendoza Deans Panel Discussion

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Martijn Cremers

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Martijn Cremers

K.J. Martijn Cremers is the Martin J. Gillen Dean and the Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance
at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He served as interim dean at Mendoza from July 2018 to June 2019. Prior to joining Notre Dame in 2012, Cremers was a faculty member at the Yale School of Management from 2002 to 2012. His research and teaching areas are investment management, corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate law, business ethics and Catholic social thought.

 

 

Roger Huang

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Roger Huang

Roger D. Huang is the Kenneth R. Meyer Professor of Global Investment Management and was acting Dean from 2011-2012 and served as Dean of the Mendoza College of Business from 2012-2016 . He holds a B.S. in Industrial Management from Purdue, as well as master and doctorate degrees in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Huang teaches global finance in the Executive MBA program, and multinational financial management in the MBA and Undergraduate programs.

 

 

Carolyn Woo

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Carolyn Woo

Carolyn Y. Woo served as dean of the Mendoza College at the University of Notre Dame from 1997 to 2011. During her tenure, the College was ranked for the first time in its history as No. 1 undergraduate program in the nation by Bloomberg Businessweek. Woo was elected the first female chair of AACSB International (accreditation association for business schools worldwide) and led the launch of the Principles for Responsible Management program with the United Nations. She has been recognized as one of 500 of the “Most Powerful People on the Planet” by Foreign Policy Magazine and one of 30 in the category of “A Force for Good.” She is the author of two books, Working for a Better World and Rising: Learning from Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries.

 

 

Moderator: Brett Beasley

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Brett Beasley

Brett Beasley serves as the Writer and Editorial Program Manager for Notre Dame Research. In collaboration with partners across campus, he tells the story of the University’s research, scholarship, and creative endeavor. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Loyola University Chicago and an MTS from the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-author (with Kerry Temple) of the book O’Hara’s Heirs: Business Education at Notre Dame, 1921-2021, and his articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including the Washington Post, Scientific American, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Prior to joining Notre Dame Research, he spent six years with the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership.

 

 

2021

1pm – 2pm
Jordan Auditorium

Watch Video

For 33 seasons, which included two national championships, Muffet McGraw patrolled the sidelines as the Karen & Kevin Keyes Family Notre Dame women’s basketball head coach. McGraw hoisted the NCAA national championship trophy in both 2001 and 2018 – becoming the sixth different women’s basketball head coach to win multiple NCAA titles.

McGraw was the 13th female coach inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. She had previously been inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014

Her legendary career included an impressive 936 career wins (ranks sixth all-time among Division I coaches), including 848 at Notre Dame. During the 2018-19 season, McGraw became the fourth-fastest coach to reach the 900-win milestone.

Coach McGraw led the Irish to seven NCAA title game appearances (2001, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019), including six in her last decade of coaching. Meanwhile, her nine Final Four appearances rank as the fifth most all-time. All-in-all, McGraw’s teams have qualified for 26 NCAA Tournaments, earning 67 tournament wins along the way.

A four-time National Coach of the Year winner and seven-time Conference Coach of the Year, McGraw won 25 total combined conference regular season and tournament championships. In addition, she has collected 174 wins against ranked opponents with 66 coming against top-10 teams.

McGraw is one of just five coaches in NCAA Division I history with over 930 wins, nine Final Fours and multiple NCAA championships — others are Summitt, Auriemma, VanDerveer and Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski.

McGraw remains active in the South Bend community. Whether it’s organizing food drives throughout the area or teaching her Sports Leadership class in Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. In addition, she joined ACC Network as a basketball analyst.

2019

Tom Mendoza
Retired Vice Chairman, NetApp Inc.

“Building a Vibrant Workplace Culture in Good Times and Bad”
Friday, September 13
11:00am – 12:00pm
Mendoza College of Business, Jordan Auditorium

Joe Ucuzoglu
Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte

“A bigger impact: The promise of professional services in the 4th Industrial Revolution”
Friday, October 11
11:00am – 12:00pm
Mendoza College of Business, Jordan Auditorium

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Robert Jackson
Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Friday, November 22
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Mendoza College of Business, Jordan Auditorium

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