Business Pundit

Corporations and academic institutions have long enjoyed deep-seated ties. Corporations fund research studies and university departments; academics ready their students for corporate service.

Some professors also dedicate their finely-tuned cerebra to corporate decisionmaking. If the companies involved have a scandal or two behind them, interesting links between academia and corporate America start surfacing.

The twenty professors listed below temper their hard-won eminence with service on the Board of Directors of some pretty notorious companies. See for yourself the who’s who of the academic-industrial complex:

1. Montsanto + Arizona State University

15-year Montsanto board member George H. Poste directs ASU’s Arizona Biodesign Institute. One of the institute’s foci is on “developing microbiological systems that capture or develop renewable resources.“ Such research, when connected to a company that creates herbicides, chemical warfare agents, and patented seeds, becomes downright scary.

2. Philip Morris + University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Elizabeth E. Bailey is a pedigreed Wharton professor and 19-year director at Philip Morris (now the Altria Group). This public policy specialist has probably spent the past two decades maneuvering the company around an endless barrage of accusations.

3. Fannie Mae + University of Georgia

Moving his way up through the ranks of Ernst & Young and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), accounting professor Dennis R. Beresford earned a position on Fannie Mae’s board in 2006. His brain will come in handy when fabricating ways to adequately capitalize Fannie Mae.

4. Wal-Mart + Harvard

The nation’s most prestigious university meets the country’s most disdained retailer in the form of Cash. James Cash, Jr., that is, the retired Harvard Business School professor who serves on the retail giant’s Board of Directors. Cash also sits on the boards of GE and Microsoft. With a last name like that, what board can refuse you?

5. Chevron + University of Texas

University of Texas President Emeritus Franklyn G. Jenifer has been a director at Chevron for 15 years. Like many oil companies, Chevron suffers from PR problems rather than profit loss. Jenifer’s service at a company subject to human rights criticism in several hotspots across the globe, including the Niger Delta, provides an interesting contrast to his celebrated career advancing opportunities for people of color.

6. Halliburton + Rice University

Rice economics professor S. Malcolm Gillis has a long history in the mining, minerals, and resources sector. His expertise ranges from Alaskan pipeline consultancy to Colombian tax reform. No wonder he’s resource-hungry Halli’s go-to intellectual.

7. Coca-Cola + Georgetown

Georgetown U. International Affairs professor Donald F. McHenry spent years running a D.C. consulting firm that, among other products, sells political risk insurance. As a five-year Coca-Cola director, McHenry is an asset to a company which not only operates in 200 countries, but deals with political risks including mercenary assassins, enraged farmers, and mysterious quasi-invasions in Iran

8. Morehouse College + McDonalds

What do Conoco, Delta Airlines, British Petroleum, Bank of America, McDonalds, and Morehouse College have in common? One man, and his name is Walter E. Massey, President of Morehouse; director on all five boards. He’s also a member of the super-elite, top-secret Bilderberg Group, which some say is conspiring to build a creepy New World Order.

9. MIT + Citigroup

John M. Deutch, an MIT professor who serves on Citigroup’s board, has perhaps the most colorful history of any academic. Deutch served as Director of the CIA from 1995-96. That year, it was discovered that Deutch had been keeping classified documents in a private journal on his home computer. An investigation ensued, culminating in a pardon from Bill Clinton. These days, one of Deutch’s biggest challenges involves regrouping Citigroup.

10. California Institute of Technology + Dow Chemical

CalTech professor and chemist Jacqueline K. Barton has been on Dow’s board for the past 15 years. Chairing the Environment, Health & Safety committee for this chemical giant, which has Bhopal, Agent Orange, and napalm in its legacy, gives this prof an interesting challenge.

11. Pfizer + Harvard

62-year-old Dennis A. Ausiello, M.D., is a Harvard Medical School professor who also serves on Pfizer’s board of directors. The company’s colorful array of products include Viagra, the antidepressant Zoloft, and AIDS drug Diflucan. The latter, which critics claim Pfizer sold to poor countries at inflated prices, caused quite the media stir in the past (the company says it donates the drug to countries in need). Ausiello is probably familiar with the fine line where Hippocrates meets hypocrisy.

12. Ford + University of Michigan

U. Mich physics professor Homer A. Neal’s tentacles reach into the Smithsonian Institution, the US National Science Board, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—and Ford Motor Co. It might just take particle physics—one of Neal’s specialties—in order to get Ford back on its feet again.

13. Eli Lilly + Harvard

Another professor meets Big Pharma: Economics professor Martin S. Feldstein sits on Lilly’s board of directors. Feldstein was slated as a possible Alan Greenspan successor, but instead remained positioned in his role as a longtime professor and conservative economist. He’s another link in Lilly’s many connections with the Bush family dynasty.

14. Kraft + Harvard

Myra M. Hart spent much of her career in the retail sector, first at a New England grocery chain, then as a co-founder of Staples. It’s appropriate that this partially-retired professor at Harvard Business School would serve on the board of a company whose products end up displayed in superstores. Though she directs the creator of Oreos, Cheez-Whiz, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Hart’s own waistline does not seem to increase in proportion to her influence on Kraft’s bottom line.

15. General Electric + MIT

Dr. Susan Hockfield not only helps steer GE’s massive ship, but serves as president of the prestigious Massachussetts Institute of Technology. A neuroscientist by trade, Hockfield will surely be using her ecoimagination to help turn GE from a notorious Hudson River defiler into a green giant.

16. Wells Fargo + Stanford

Robert L. Joss, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, also sits on Wells Fargo’s board. The bank’s directors must be doing something right—Wells Fargo is currently one of the nation’s few healthy banks.

17. Whole Foods + Tulane University

Whole Foods director John B. Elstrott teaches entrepreneurship at Tulane U. If his expertise includes how to sell to various niches, such as the under $150/grocery shopping trip crowd, he’s in the right place.

18. GlaxoSmithKline + Imperial College, London

Professor Sir Roy Anderson teaches students about infectious diseases at London’s Imperial College. His GSM biography also states that he has an interest in science policy. A good thing, as the company refuses to field a number of adhesive arachnoiditis sufferers waiting for public acknowledgement of their case.

19. Google + Princeton

Search giant Google historically has close associations with Stanford University, but when it comes to the big people in the boardroom, Princeton plays no small role. Shirley M. Tilghman, president of Princeton, sits on Google’s board. A biologist with groundbreaking experience in cloning and genetics, Tilghman may just be helping Google build the world’s largest organic artificial intelligence network. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

20. Goldman Sachs + Brown University

Ruth J. Simmons, president of Brown University, has been a Goldman Sachs director for the past eight years. With falling shares and an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, she’ll have much to discuss in upcoming board meetings. Hopefully the firm can counter its losses with its new $1 billion in subprime “assets.”