Dr. Shane Goodwin

Dr. Shane Goodwin is the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Executive Education and serves as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Finance at The Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Goodwin has over 30 years of experience in M&A, investment banking, and private equity as a practitioner, board member, and professor. Most recently, Dr. Goodwin served as a Senior Fellow and Director at the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy at Columbia University, a research institute established by Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School, served as a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. His research is focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and shareholder activism.  

Dr. Goodwin is an expert witness on complex litigation issues regarding M&A, corporate governance, capital markets, and corporate finance matters and is a Board Leadership Fellow and a Certified Director at the National Association of Corporate Directors. Dr. Goodwin serves on the Board of Directors and the SEC Audit Committee Financial Expert for Principal Private Credit Fund and Principal Real Asset Fund, part of Principal Financial Group (Nasdaq: PFG) with $700Bn+ AUM. Additional Board of Director roles include OrthoMed Anesthesia, Crystal Clearwater Resources, Harvard University Club of Dallas, NACD North Texas Chapter, Investment Committee of the Dallas Regional Chamber, and the Advisory Board of Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC), the sixth-largest commercial bank in the U.S.  Additionally, Dr. Goodwin serves as an advisor to The Applied Corporate Governance Institute at The Center for Global Enterprise, an organization that advises companies to understand, engage, and succeed with their investors in complex and contested shareholder matters.

Dr. Goodwin has nearly 25 years of corporate finance, M&A, and investment banking experience at firms, including:
•    Goldman, Sachs & Co.
•    Citigroup
•    Wells Fargo Securities
•    Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette/Credit Suisse

Most recently, he was a Managing Director and the Head of Investment Banking for the Southwest U.S. at Wells Fargo Securities.  He has advised on over 250 M&A assignments totaling over $50 billion in transaction value, including sell-side and buy-side transactions, anti-raid, takeover and activism defenses, cross-border M&A, and restructuring advisory assignments.  Additionally, he has executed over 100 public and private debt and equity investments totaling over $40 billion and has extensive private equity and corporate restructuring experience.  

Dr. Goodwin was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University to conduct M&A and corporate governance research.  He earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Oklahoma State University, with a focus on finance.  His dissertation, “Corporate Governance and Hedge Fund Activism”, was cited by several journals and news agencies, including Bloomberg, and was used to create a proprietary trading index (Goodwin Chakraborty Activist Index™).  Dr. Goodwin holds an MBA, with a concentration in finance, from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and attended The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  He graduated cum laude with a BSBA from the Collins College of Business at The University of Tulsa and was the recipient of the Jess Chouteau Outstanding Senior Award.  

Dr. Goodwin was a three-year letterman in football, earning All-American Scholar and Student-Athlete of the Year awards, and was drafted by Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. Dr. Goodwin received the Outstanding Alumni Award and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at The University of Tulsa and the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame, as a member of the Canadian Junior Football League National Championship team.