John Allison, president and CEO of the Cato Institute and the former chairman and CEO of BB&T Corp., will appear in the College of Business and Economics Distinguished Speaker Series on Feb. 28 at West Virginia University.

During Allison’s tenure, BB&T Corp. became the 10th largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. Allison will speak on Feb. 28 at 10 a.m. in the WVU Mountainlair Ballrooms.

“It’s great for our University community to have access to someone who was as iconic as Mr. Allison in the banking arena,” said “Dr. Jose “Zito Sartarelli, Milan Puskar Dean. “The growth BB&T experienced under his leadership is remarkable, and is a real tribute to his knowledge and understanding of the banking industry. In his leadership of the Cato Institute, Mr. Allison heads one of the most renowned public policy research organizations in the world.”

During his tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. Allison was recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade. He has received the Corning Award for Distinguished Leadership, been inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Banker. He is a former Distinguished Professor of Practice at Wake Forest University School of Business, and serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Allison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his master’s degree in management from Duke University and is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking.

For more information on this event or the College of Business and Economics Distinguished Speaker Series, please visit be.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

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CONTACT: Patrick Gregg, WVU College of Business and Economics
patrick.gregg@mail.wvu.edu or 304.293.5131

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