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 Kim
Matthews
MBA ’03
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Alumna Values McCombs Experience
Kim Matthews always knew she wanted an MBA.
After receiving her BBA in management information systems from Texas A&M, Matthews spent five years working for IBM Global Services in IT consulting in Dallas. The internet boom of the late 1990s provided a perfect starting place, but after the net bubble burst, opportunities in IT consulting began to decline.
That brought her to the McCombs School of Business.
One of the reasons she chose McCombs was because of the school’s and the University’s approach to information technology.
“I liked the fact that McCombs views IT as a component of corporate strategy, not just cost or overhead, and pursuing an MBA at a school that valued my background was important,” Matthews says. “And, being in Austin certainly didn’t hurt.”
Upon leaving McCombs, Matthews landed a job at Lehman Brothers, working in private wealth management.
In 2005 Matthews began working at CenterPoint Energy, a leading utility provider based in Houston. For two years, she worked as an internal process consultant for corporate finance. Six months ago, she made a move and is now the manager of investor relations. In that role, Matthews' goal is to ensure that CenterPoint Energy securities are fairly valued in the market.
“My job is based on communications and relationships, both within CenterPoint and in the marketplace,” she says. “Our goal is to get information about our current performance and future prospects to the market in a timely manner and, in turn, bring back feedback from the financial community to our executive leadership. We are being evaluated along with hundreds of other investment choices. The competition is stiff, so a clear, accurate, consistent message is critically important. We want to make it easy for anyone to analyze and, ultimately, invest in our company.” Click here to read more.
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Investment Opportunity
Make a gift to the McCombs School Annual Fund and help us achieve our goal of becoming the best public business school in the nation. Give now.
The McCombs School of Business 2005-06 Investors' Report is available online. View the 2005-06 donors and financial information.
Related Links
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The MBA Alumni Endowed Excellence Fund provides an excellent opportunity for all alumni to give back to the school. Launching new MBA initiatives that will enhance the educational experience of MBA students, this fund is unique in that a committee of students, alumni, and MBA program office staff will work together to determine optimal usage of the funds.
Hire McCombs Alumni through the McCombs Job Board
Search for a job or promote employment opportunities to both current students and alumni of the McCombs School of Business.
Both the Alumni Directory and the McCombs Job Board are accessible through your UT EID (University of Texas Electronic Identification). Click here for more information on finding your UT EID, or contact the Registrar's office at 512-475-7656.
If you have any questions, please email us and refer to “Alumni Directory” or “McCombs Job Board” in the subject and content of your message.
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Top Stories
Stephens to Head Up MBA Plus Program
Deidra Stephens has been named director of the MBA Plus  Program. Stephens has been coordinator of the McCombs Global Connections program since joining McCombs two years ago. Before arriving in Austin, she worked for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for eight years. Stephens holds a bachelor’s degree in human sciences from Texas Tech University, a master’s degree in higher education administration from the University of North Texas and is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in higher education administration at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Faculty Members Gain Promotions
Five McCombs faculty members have received promotions effective Sept. 1, 2008. They are Steve Gilbert (IROM), promoted to the rank of professor; Lorenzo Garlappi (Finance) and Hüseyin Tanriverdi (IROM), promoted to the rank of associate professor; and Doug Dierking (Management) and Christopher Meakin (IROM), promoted to the rank of senior lecturer.
Gu Wins Award for Paper on E-Commerce
 A paper co-authored by Bin Gu, IROM assistant professor, was named Best Paper in Track at the 2007 International Conference on Information Systems held in Montreal. The paper, “Estimating Menu Costs in Electronic Markets,” examines the costs online retailers incur when they make price changes. Gu said that common wisdom suggests that IT advances allow online retailers to change prices quickly with less cost. In the paper, however, Gu measured the price adjustment costs of a major online retailer and found the company actually incurred significantly higher costs for each price change. But the price change costs were spread across a larger quantity of products, reducing price adjustment costs per product. In sum, Gu found, scale economies rather than IT enables online retailers to change prices more often. Read the paper.
Texas Executive Education Offers Accounting & Finance for Non-Financial Managers
Refresh your knowledge or learn the basics of accounting assumptions, accounting and financial terminology, and financial techniques, in Accounting & Finance for Non-Financial Managers, February 19-20, 2008. Faculty: Eric Hirst, Ph.D., Sanford J. Leeds, Esq., CFA, James A. Nolen, MBA. This program teaches you how concepts and strategies are integrated into your company’s big picture. You will learn the language of business and begin to understand the reality behind the numbers. Different types of information systems will be examined: control-based accounting structures for managing physical resources; and information-based accounting structures for planning, evaluating, and decision-making. You will learn how to address and communicate problems more effectively, how to identify relevant information, and how to apply the analytical skills needed to make better business decisions and take maximum advantage of business opportunities.
 Texas Magazine for Fall/Winter 2007 Now Online
If you haven't yet picked up the latest issue of Texas magazine at stands around the business school, it is now available for online perusal. Top stories include: “Leading in the 21st Century,” in which Dean George Gau provides a four-year progress report on our goal to become the best public business school in the nation; “Excellence Across the Board,” an in-depth story on how faculty manage the difficult task of balancing classroom excellence while preparing top-level research; “The Rankings Race,” a look at the current state of affairs in the never-ending cycle of the rankings industry; a feature on Accounting Professor Bill Kinney, one of the leading auditing experts and researchers working today; and Julie Irwin (left), associate professor of marketing and the new director of ethics education at McCombs, writes about her motivations in the “Why I Do What I Do” feature. Plus, much, much more! Read more.
McCombs In The News
Ethical Decision Making
The Chicago Tribune, Dec. 25, 2007
 A recent paper by Robert Prentice, professor of business law in the IROM Department, applies recent findings from neurology and psychology to how investors and their advisers make moral decisions. “Investment professionals whose ethics go astray frequently believe they hold solid moral values but succumb to the questionable culture of their organizations,” Prentice writes. “The urge to obey authority and conform to the group is deeply embedded in the human brain.” Another issue, Prentice contends, is that “people in the investment game who espouse simple-minded economic theory often assume a level ethical playing field in transactions with customers. Buyers and sellers are equally canny and unscrupulous. So, what can be wrong? Everybody does it.” Read more.
Market Research on the Cheap
BusinessWeek, Jan. 9, 2008
 Large corporations spend millions on sophisticated surveys and focus groups from established researchers. But for entrepreneurs operating on a shoestring budget, there are ways to gather key information about your customers and prospects without hiring an outside firm. Rob Adams, McCombs management lecturer, director of the Moot Corp competition and author of “A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs,” provides one key tip: Research the same way you sell. “If you sell in person, survey in person. If you sell over the phone, survey over the phone,” Adams said. And for entrepreneurs who plan to sell primarily online, a Web survey can gauge interest. “If you get no results, that should tell you something,” he added. Read more.
Brandl Gives Tips on Paying Off Holiday Debt
KXAN, Jan. 17, 2008
Michael Brandl, senior finance lecturer, doles out some practical  advice to television viewers who may have overspent during the holidays and who are now facing hefty credit card bills arriving in the mail. “It can often take years for people to pay off one Christmas,” Brandl said. “The best thing you can do is pay as much as you possibly can, and that's going to require sacrifice.” Watch the story.
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Last Updated
Wednesday, July 23, 2008