Contact

368B Mervis Hall
diane@katz.pitt.edu
412-624-0296

Profile

Diane Denis, Professor and Terrence Laughlin Chair Emeritus of Finance, has published widely in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, corporate diversification, corporate restructuring, and other areas of corporate governance and corporate finance. She has published in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics, as well as other finance journals. She serves as an associate editor for a number of finance journals and is the co-editor of a two-volume book of readings on international corporate governance. Her teaching interests are in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions at the graduate and undergraduate levels. 

Professor Denis received a BS in Finance from Oakland University in 1980, an MBA from the Cranfield Institute of Technology in the UK in 1981, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Michigan in 1990. She joined Katz in 2011, following 16 years on the faculty at Purdue University and six years on the faculty at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She served as the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research at Purdue from 2006-2009.

Courses Recently Taught

• Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Structures, Undergraduate
• Financial Management II, MBA
• Finance Fundamentals, PhD
• Corporate Finance Seminar, PhD

Awards and Honors

• Katz Graduate School of Business Excellence in Teaching Award, 2014.
• Katz Graduate School of Business Excellence in Service Award, 2014.
• Basic Academic Paper Award, 2012, Corporate Governance Symposium of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.
• Teaching Academy Fellow, Purdue University, 2004-2011.
• Salgo Noren MBA teaching award, 2004, Krannert Graduate School of Management, Purdue University.
• Krannert Faculty Fellow, 2003, Krannert Graduate School of Management, Purdue University.
• Dean’s Office Faculty Service Award, 2003, Krannert Graduate School of Management, Purdue University.
• Best Paper Award, Financial Management, 1992 annual meetings of the Financial Management Association.

Professional Service and Activities

• Board of Directors, International Corporate Governance Society, 2014-2015
• Fellow of the Center for Corporate Governance, Drexel University, 2009-present
• Editorial Advisory Board, Corporate Governance: An International Review, 2009-present
• Board of Directors, Financial Management Association, 2008-2010
• Associate Editor, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Review of Financial Economics, Financial Review (through 2009), Financial Management (1997-1999)
• Guest Editor, Review of Financial Economics, Special issue on corporate governance

Degrees

• PhD in Finance, 1990, University of Michigan
• MBA, 1981, Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK
• BS in Finance, 1980, Oakland University

Recent Publications

“Shareholder Governance and CEO Compensation: The Peer Effects of Say on Pay,” with Torsen Jochem and Anjana Rajamani, Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming.

“CEO Assessment and Newly Formed Boards,” with David Denis and Mark Walker, Review of Financial Studies, 28 (2015), pp. 3338-3366.

“Mandatory Clawback Provisions, Information Disclosure, and the Regulation of Securities Markets,” Journal of Accounting and Economics 54 (2012), pp. 197-200.

“Earnouts: A Study of Financial Contracting in Acquisitions Agreements,” with Matthew Cain and David Denis, Journal of Accounting and Economics 51 (2011), pp. 151-170.

“International Corporate Governance Research,” in Corporate Governance: A Synthesis of Theory, Research, and Practice, edited by H. Kent Baker and Ronald Anderson, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2010.

“Duration, Outcome, and Post-Reorganization Performance,” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 42 (2007), pp.101-118, with Kimberly Rodgers.

“Leverage and Investment in Diversified Firms,” Journal of Financial Economics 79 (2006), pp. 317-337, with Seoungpil Ahn and David Denis.

Academic Area

Finance

Personal Interests

In her spare time, Diane enjoys cooking and eating; collecting wine; hiking, biking, and running; books and movies. She especially enjoys sharing these things with her husband, Dave, and their adult children, Matt and Ellen.