Menard Family Distinguished Speaker Series
The Menard Family Distinguished Speaker Series hosts world thought leaders to share their ideas on big questions that explore ways to improve the human condition and create economic opportunity. The Distinguished Speaker Series is made possible thanks to a generous gift by the Menard family.
These events are free and open to the public. We encourage all to join us in the Oceti Sakowin Ballroom at the Memorial Union. A reception with hors d'oeuvres and refreshments will follow.
Parking is available in the visitor parking lots on campus and we recommend using Visitors Lot E. (map).
Upcoming Speakers
March 25 | Leen Weijers
"Energy, Human Progress, and the Shale Revolution"
Event Location: Memorial Union, Oceti Sakowin Ballroom, 4-5:30 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Dr. Leen Weijers serves as the Vice President of Engineering at Liberty Oilfield Services. He has worked at Liberty since its founding in 2011, originally serving as its Business Manager. Leen’s role at Liberty focuses on two main aspects. One, delivering improved well economics to customers through optimized frac designs, and two, on customer and internal data sharing and reporting to improve business efficiencies.
Leen worked at Pinnacle Technologies from 1995 to 2011, where he oversaw development of the industry’s most widely used fracture growth simulator, FracproPT. He was Pinnacle’s Rocky Mountain Regional Manager from 2007 – 2011, where he helped rebuild its Rocky Mountain operations.
Leen has authored dozens of industry courses and publications. He also played a key role in the calibration of fracture growth models with various fracture diagnostics such as tiltmeter and micro-seismic fracture mapping technologies.
Leen Weijers completed his doctoral research at the Faculty of Mining and Petroleum Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands by conducting fracture growth model experiments to investigate the interaction of hydraulic fracture systems with horizontal and deviated wells. Before that, Leen completed a Master’s degree in Geophysics, also from Delft University of Technology.
Leen and his wife Margreet have four kids. Leen loves to spend his leisure time with his family in Colorado’s beautiful outdoors on skis, skates or cycling tires or on the dance floor.
April 8 | Robert Zoellick
"America in the World: U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy"
Event Location: Memorial Union, Oceti Sakowin Ballroom, 4-5:30 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
The former President of the World Bank Group from 2007-2012, Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006, Robert Zoellick is one of the world’s most distinguished authorities on the global economy, international finance, and foreign policy. He is unrivaled in his depth and breadth of what makes global economies tick and how best to operate in an increasingly global market.
Zoellick is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s highest honor, and continues his work as a top expert in finance and economics as the non-executive chairman of Alliance Bernstein, a leading global investment management firm that offers high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional investors, individuals, and private wealth clients in major world markets.
April 30 | Steve Kaplan
"A Fireside Chat with Steve Kaplan about Private Equity and Financial Markets"
*This speaker is part of the Financial Markets Day Event
Event Location: Barry Hall, Louise Auditorium, 3:00-5:00 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 5:00-6:00 p.m. This speaker is part of the Financial Markets Day event.
Steven N. Kaplan is the Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Thomas Cole Distinguished Visiting Professor Chair at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Kaplan is also the Kessenich E.P. Faculty Director of the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Research
Professor Kaplan researches private equity, venture capital, corporate governance and executive talent. He was elected to the Society of Fellows of the American Finance Association in recognition of distinguished contributions to the field of finance. He is the co-creator of the Kaplan-Schoar PME (Public Market Equivalent) private equity benchmarking approach. A Fortune Magazine article referred to him as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy.” A JP Morgan report called him “the patron saint of private equity research.” He is the co-author (with Paul Gompers) of An Advanced Introduction to Private Equity. His findings and opinions appear regularly in the business media. Professor Kaplan is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Teaching
Professor Kaplan teaches advanced MBA, law and executive courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, corporate financial management, corporate governance, and wealth management. His course in entrepreneurial finance and private equity is consistently among the most popular in the school. BusinessWeek named him one of the top twelve business school teachers in the country and one of the top four teachers of entrepreneurship.
Professor Kaplan co-founded the entrepreneurship program at Booth. With his students, he helped start Booth’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge (NVC), which has spawned over two hundred companies. The companies have raised over $1 billion from investors (including Accel, Andreesen Horowitz, Benchmark, Index and Sequoia) and have created over $8 billion in market value. Companies include GrubHub, Braintree/Venmo, Ben & Frank, MedSpeed, Open Water, Simple Mills and Tovala. The NVC has been rated one of the top two university accelerator programs in the U.S. as well as one of the top eight accelerators of any kind in the U.S. He helped start Hyde Park Angels which has been named one of the top angel groups in the U.S.
Professor Kaplan has been awarded the Phoenix Award four times and the Arthur Kelly Prize twice for exhibiting exceptional dedication to his students outside of the classroom.
Non-academic
Professor Kaplan serves on the board of Morningstar (MORN). He co-created the Lincoln Middle Market Index. He also serves on the advisory boards of several private equity and venture capital funds.
Education
Professor Kaplan earned his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University. He received his AB, summa cum laude, in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College.
Recent Speakers
November 19 | Doug Duncan
"A Conversation About the U.S. Economy and the Future with Implications for North Dakota"
*Special Event Location: North Dakota's Gateway to Science, Innovation Space in Bismarck, ND 4-5:30 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Douglas G. Duncan is an Executive Advisor, Senior Vice President at Fannie Mae. He was previously Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at Fannie Mae, where he was responsible for forecasts and analyses of the economy and the housing and mortgage markets. Duncan also oversaw strategic research regarding the potential impact of external factors on the housing industry.
Under his leadership, Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group earned the 2022 Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy, recognizing their industry-leading work over a four-year period. In both 2015 and 2016, Duncan and the ESR Group won the NABE Outlook Award, presented annually for the most accurate GDP and Treasury note yield forecasts, becoming the first recipient in the award's history to capture the honor two years in a row.
Named one of Bloomberg/BusinessWeek's 50 Most Powerful People in Real Estate and Inman News' 100 Most Influential People in Real Estate, as Chief Economist, Duncan was Fannie Mae's source for information and analyses on demographics and the external business and economic environment; the implications of changes in economic activity on the company's strategy and execution; and for forecasting overall housing, economic, and mortgage market activity.
Prior to joining Fannie Mae, Duncan was Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. His experience also includes work on the Financial Institutions Project at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and service as a LEGIS Fellow and staff member with the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs for Congressman Bill McCollum in the U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, Duncan was a Board member of the National Association of Business Economics and a Board member and Chairman of Strategies to Elevate People (STEP).
Duncan is a Hoyt Professional Fellow at the Homer Hoyt Institute. He was chosen as the North Dakota State University College of Agriculture Alumni of the Year in 2018. He was also elected as a Trustee of North Dakota State University in 2022.
Duncan received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M University and his B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural Economics from North Dakota State University.
October 8 | Greg Lukianoff
"Free Speech in Free Fall: The Academic Freedom Crisis on Campus"
Event Location: Memorial Union, Oceti Sakowin Ballroom, 4-5:30 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently Greg co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.
Past Distinguished Speakers
- Charlie Bobrinskoy, Vice Chairman and Head of the Investment Group for Ariel Investments
- Douglas Irwin, John french Professor of Economics at Dartmouth
- Tami Reller, former CFO of Microsoft Windows, and CEO of Duly Health and Care
- Ian Rowe, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Cofounder of Vertex Partnership Academies
- Benjamin Powell, Executive Director of the Free Market Institute and professor of Economics at Texas Tech University
- Robert Lawson, Professor and Chair in Economic Freedom & Director of the Bridwell Institute at Southern Methodist University
- David Bobb, President of the Bill of Rights Institute
- Gabriela Santos, Managing Director and Global Market Strategist at J.P. Morgan
- John List, Ph.D., distinguished professor in Economics at the University of Chicago
- Glenn Loury, Ph.D., professor of Social Sciences and Economics at Brown University
- Magatte Wade, serial entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, and visionary business leader
- Mark Mills, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-founder and strategic partner in Montrose Lane
- Sam Peltzman, Ph.D., distinguished professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Chicago
- Vernon Smith, Ph.D., recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002
- Liz Ann Sonders, managing director and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab
- Jason Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist for the Wall Street Journal
- Tyler VanderWeele, Ph.D., director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University
- Alice Marie Johnson, former federal inmate and founder of the Taking Action for Good Foundation
- Emily Oster, Ph.D., author and professor of economics at Brown University
- Robert Koopman, Ph.D., chief economist at the World Trade Organization
- Ambassador Susan Schwab, former U.S. Trade Representative from 2006-2009
- Emily Chamlee Wright, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Institute for Humane Studies
- J.D. Vance, author of the best-seller Hillbilly Elegy
- Edward Glaeser, Ph.D., professor of economics at Harvard University
- Arthur Brooks, Ph.D., author and professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School
- Johan Norberg, author and documentary filmmaker
- John Allison, former chairman and CEO of BB& T Corp.