Swonk Will Teach “Financial Economics of Valuation” MBA Course This Spring

Diane C. Swonk, Bank One’s nationally recognized and often quoted chief economist, will join the faculty of DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business this spring as a clinical professor of finance.

Swonk will be the lead professor in a graduate evening course called “Financial Economics of Valuation” from April to June for students in the school’s highly ranked, part-time MBA program while she continues her duties with Bank One. The title clinical professor denotes the extensive experience Swonk brings to the classroom.

“Diane Swonk is a nationally recognized economist known for her superb analytical and forecasting skills,” said DePaul Finance Department Chair Ali Fatemi. “She is highly sought-after by senior public policy officials in Washington and elsewhere for her views on the economy.

Senior corporate executives around the country also solicit her expert advice. Ms. Swonk’s broad range of expertise and experience uniquely qualify her as one of the most influential economists around. She is the perfect addition to the ranks of our clinical faculty at DePaul, where we pride ourselves in striving for balance between theory and practice.”

Swonk said: “I am honored and excited to bring real-world applications of economics into the classroom. I also look forward to the give and take that is such an integral part of learning.”

Swonk’s course will focus on the process of valuation of a firm. It will take a top-down approach to the question of valuation, beginning with the forecasting of economic conditions and financial markets. Macroeconomic forecasts, supplemented with industry and regional economic forecasts, are incorporated into a valuation framework that leads to a determination of the value of the firm.

Swonk is the director of economics, chief economist and a senior vice president for Bank One Corporation in Chicago. She started her career at Bank One’s predecessor, First Chicago Corporation, in 1985. She quickly moved up the ranks at the bank, proving herself as a regional economist just one year later with her forecast for a renaissance in the Industrial Midwest. Swonk designed the bank’s regional model, has published several nationally acclaimed studies and currently manages the bank’s Corporate Economics Group.

Swonk is called upon as an economic expert by policymakers from the Mayor’s Office in Chicago to the White House. She also is among the most quoted experts on the economy in the financial press. She makes regular appearances on the major news networks, CNN, CNBC and PBS and is frequently quoted in the financial pages of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times and news magazines, such as Business Week. Her name shows up so often that Chicago magazine commented that “her name…seems the very heartbeat of the business pages.”

Swonk is the immediate past president and a current board member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). She was the youngest president in the association’s history. She has been listed as one of the Wall Street Journal’s “Star Forecasters,” and Today’s Chicago Woman magazine named her the “Top Woman in Finance in Chicago” in 1999.

Swonk earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics with honors from the University of Michigan, and her MBA with honors from the University of Chicago. DePaul’s part-time MBA program is ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and is the largest accredited part-time MBA program in the United States.