Robert Howell

Robert A. Howell is is a leading authority on corporate governance and financial measurement, analysis, reporting, and control practices. His activities span fundamental research in his field, fast conversion to education, and assisting leading-edge organizations to effect change.

He has taught finance and accounting as well as management strategy and policy in executive, MBA, and DBA programs. In addition, he is Senior Partner of The Howell Group, LLC and has run his own consulting firm for over 35 years. His clients have included General Electric, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar, Boeing, Hallmark, AT&T, and Nestlé.

Professor Howell’s current research is focused on financial statements that drive value creation, strategic finance, the changing role of the CFO and the finance organization, and corporate governance. His ideas and his writings have appeared in publications such as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, Management Accounting, The Handbook of Cost Management, Financial Executive, Financial Times, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal.

He has led a series of study missions for senior executives to both U.S. and Japanese companies, has twice served as technical advisor to Fortune’s CFO Conference, has twice served as a subject matter expert for The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Program, and has organized and led a number of his own senior financial executive roundtables. He is currently a member of The Wall Street Journal’s “Experts Panel.”

Professor Howell was a co-founder of the Center for Corporate Excellence and has served as CFO of two publicly-traded consumer product companies. He has also been a director of public and private corporations; the chair of an audit committee; and a trustee of a private college and a leadership institute. He is currently a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and its Director Professionalism Program faculty, responsible for the "Driving Shareholder Value via Finance" module. He has presented this material to more than 2,500 directors in the past eight years.

Prior to joining the faculty at Tuck, Professor Howell held faculty appointments at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland; Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management; New York University; and Harvard Business School. He has received numerous outstanding teaching awards.

Professor Howell received his BSEE from Bucknell University, MBA from University of Pennsylvania, and DBA from Harvard University.