The Geneen Institute aims to bridge academic research and practical business application. Fellows will join faculty to study regulation and compliance, ethics and corporate boards, executive compensation, and other governance issues with direct impact on companies and stakeholders. Their work also includes educat- ing others on how to implement corporate governance in the marketplace.

The initiative brings a “much-needed critical eye to the study and practice of corporate governance,” says Cynthia Clark Williams, director of the Geneen Institute and associate director of the Bentley PhD program. “Students will analyze the factors that lead to successful governance on a local and global level, and develop strategies for replicating such practices in real-world settings.”

First Fellows

The first Geneen Doctoral Fellows are Darin “Kip” Holderness and Ada Jin Wang, respective candidates for the Bentley PhD in Accountancy and in Business. Two more fellows will be named in 2011. Holderness earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University, and gained audit experience as an intern for Deloitte and for Deseret Mutual Benefit Administration. His doctoral work centers on corporate governance, accounting regulation, and fraud.
Wang has seven years’ experience with law firms in Beijing and Shanghai, where she assist- ed American and European companies doing business in China. Her PhD program explores the intersection of corporate governance and sustainable development. She holds an MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and a law degree from London School of Economics and Political Science.

Answering Demand

The PhD program at Bentley began in 2006. At the time, a survey of leading business deans had identified a newly competitive marketplace and a lack of qualified candidates for business school faculty positions. Bentley answers the demand with students trained in the school’s core areas of expertise: business and society, which incorporates a broad focus on corporate social responsibility and governance; account- ancy; and business and information technology.
The grant from the Geneen Charitable Trust is among several recent validations of quality for the Bentley PhD program. Additional supporters are State Street Corporation and the National Science Foundation. Bentley also was selected for the Accounting Doctoral Scholars Program, created by more than 65 of the largest accounting firms and 35 state CPA societies to groom academically qualified, university-level faculty in accountancy. The trust was established by Harold S. Geneen,
a widely respected business executive who led ITT from 1959 to 1977.