Ken Wiles is a clinical professor of finance and the executive director of the HMTF Private Equity Center at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. He has taught courses on financial strategies in private equity, financial management, integrative finance, and investments for the school’s MBA, Master of Science in Finance, and undergraduate programs. In his work with the HMTF Private Equity Center, Wiles helps support curriculum development and scholarships for the MBA program.

An experienced researcher and professor, Wiles proposed an alternative construction to Tobin’s q — introduced by Nicholas Kaldor in 1966 — which is a theoretical company performance measure. He has also analyzed the effectiveness of small shareholder monitoring. His work has been published in numerous academic journals, including The Journal of Empirical Finance, Journal of Finance Economics, The Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Financial Analyst Journal, and Financial Management, and he also wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal on Uber’s financial issues.

Outside of academia, Wiles is the managing partner and founder of the Fulcrum Financial Group and the managing director of Andare Partners, a financial advisory, restructuring, and litigation support firm. He is a certified valuation and interest rate expert in federal bankruptcy court and was the chief restructuring officer of Turnberry/MGM Grand Towers LLC. Wiles has also served as the COO or CFO of several companies, two of which were taken public by JP Morgan and Bear Sterns, and one which was sold to Oracle Corp.

Wiles’ financial and operational experience has gained him a respected standing in his field. Gov. Brian Sandoval appointed Wiles to chair of the Nevada Economic Forum, which estimates the state’s revenue — a role he held until 2018. He was also a consulting producer for a Robert Irvine show on the Food Network.

Wiles earned a chartered financial analyst certification from the CFA Institute. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in economics and B.S. in finance from American University, and he earned a Ph.D. in finance from Texas McCombs.