Last modified: Thursday, February 24, 2011
Kelley School of Business to honor five IU alumni on March 4 in Indianapolis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 24, 2011
Editors: Contact George Vlahakis at 812-855-0846 or gvlahaki@indiana.edu if you are interested in scheduling an advance interview with any of the people featured in this release. Some of them may be available for brief interviews on the day of the conference.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Five alumni of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business will be honored for professional achievement during an awards ceremony at the 65th annual IU Business Conference next Friday (March 4) in Indianapolis.
Being named to the Kelley School of Business Academy of Alumni Fellows are Monika H. Kroener, president and founder of Crown Management Bloomington, Inc., Bloomington, Ind.; Peter H. Kroener, chairman and chief executive officer of Crown Management Bloomington LLC, Bloomington, Ind.; Kathleen M. Pawlus, Americas vice chair and chief financial officer of Ernst & Young LLP, Chicago; and James C. Thyen, president and CEO of Kimball International, Inc., Jasper, Ind.
The 2011 Distinguished Entrepreneur Award will be presented to James M. McClelland, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Inc., Indianapolis.
The conference, with the theme "Rethinking the Relationship Between Business and Government: Free Markets and the Greater Good," will begin at 9 a.m. at the Indiana Convention Center, 100 S. Capitol Ave., and conclude at 2 p.m. Information and online registration are available at 812-855-6340 and https://kelley.iu.edu/busconf.
More about those being honored:
Monika H. Kroener
Monika Kroener founded Crown Management Bloomington, Inc. in 1979, and it soon developed into a diversified international consulting firm, specializing in strategic and marketing analysis, economic development, and real estate investments and management. Most particularly the company provides services to small and medium sized European companies wanting to enter or expand in the United States, but it also assists U.S. firms in European activities.
She has had a wide range of management experiences, including as vice chair and director of the IU International Business Forum, an executive roundtable and network; as vice chair and the mayor's appointee to the Bloomington Public Transportation Corp.; and as president of the USA International Harp Competition, one of two such competitions in the world.
Prior to her involvement with Crown Management, Kroener founded and managed Charter Travel Agency, a national niche air-consolidator that developed into a leading full-range travel provider.
Most recently Kroener initiated the Indiana International Management Institute which she now chairs. The principal focus of the institute is to provide advanced international business education to managers of small and medium sized companies. These programs are offered in cooperation with European business schools and are designed to provide an insight into current American management thought and practice through short intensive MBA-level curricula.
Her educational outreach includes the directorship of the American Information and Management Center, part of the global network of institutes under the umbrella of the Steinbeis Foundation and Steinbeis University Berlin, Germany.
Kroener holds a doctorate and a master of business administration degree from the Kelley School of Business, where she has taught marketing management. Before coming to the United States, she studied economics at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and the Free University of Berlin, Germany.
She is a member of the IU Jacobs School of Music Dean's Global Advisory Council and has served for more than 20 years on the Global Advisory Board of the Thunderbird School of International Management in Glendale, Ariz. For many years she has been a member of the IU Foundation Board's International Committee and the Board of the St. Galler Business School.
At IU she also is the president of the Jacobs School's Emeritus Board of the Friends of Music and a member of the Board of the Society of the Institute for Advanced Study. Since 1990 Ms. Kroener has been a Rotarian, and she is a member of the American Council on Germany.
Peter H. Kroener
Peter Kroener joined Crown Management LLC, an international consulting firm, as chairman of the board and CEO in January 2003, after an extensive career of more than 28 years with Siemens AG in Germany and the United States.
During his tenure with Siemens, Kroener was the president of Siemens Real Estate, Inc., after having served as vice president and controller of Siemens Corp. and Siemens Medical Systems. He also had been the vice president of Corporate Management Audit in the United States, the internal consulting arm of Siemens, completing various consulting assignments in telecommunications, power generation and distribution, as well as medical engineering and graphic color separation.
Prior to his engagement with Siemens, Kroener worked as a CPA in the audit group of Deloitte & Touche in Chicago. As a member of the faculty of the Kelley School of Business, he has taught accounting at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Bloomington and Indianapolis.
He also has been an active member on several corporate boards. In 1992, he founded the German-American CFO Roundtable, which he still co-chairs. In addition, he is a member of the "Wirtschaftsrunde", a network of German CEOs in the U.S.
Kroener received his MBA and doctoral degrees from the Kelley School of Business. He also holds a CPA designation. While studying business administration at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, he received a Fulbright Scholarship for overseas study in the United States. He also finished the Corporate Traineeship (Stammhauslehre) at Siemens AG in Berlin with a summa cum laude diploma.
Over the years, Kroener has served as a guest lecturer at Columbia and Washington universities, as well as the University of California at Los Angeles. He is a member of the IU International Business Forum and has been a member of the Kelley School Dean's Council for 20 years. He serves on the Jacobs School of Music Dean's Global Advisory Council. He continues to be registered with the Indiana CPA Association and the AICPA. He is a Rotarian and Paul Harris Fellow.
James M. McClelland
A native of Florida, McClelland has spent nearly all of his professional life with Goodwill Industries. In 1970 following three years of military service, he entered Goodwill Industries of America's Executive Training Program in Houston. In 1972 he became executive vice president of Goodwill Industries in Beaumont, Texas, and soon thereafter accepted the position of vice president-operations of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Inc., headquartered in Indianapolis.
Since 1974 McClelland has been president and CEO of the Indianapolis-based Goodwill organization which, with 2,300 employees and $90 million in revenue, is one of the largest of 160 Goodwill corporations in North America.
Under his leadership, Goodwill has evolved into a social enterprise that includes in its workforce more than 1,400 persons whose vocational options are limited by disability, criminal history or low education level. Goodwill also helps unemployed people find jobs and operates a community service employment program for low income senior citizens.
In 2004 Goodwill founded the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School, a public charter school focused on helping increase the high school graduation rate in Indianapolis and the percentage of graduates who enroll in and complete post-secondary education. This past September Goodwill opened a second high school, The Excel Center, to provide a diploma option for older youth and adults who left school before graduating.
Throughout his career McClelland has been heavily involved in Goodwill Industries nationally and internationally, and for the past several years has helped start new Goodwill organizations in South Korea. In addition, he is chairman of workability-Americas and is on the board of directors of Workability International.
At the local level he has served on the boards of numerous not-for-profit organizations and is currently a member of the board of directors of Citizens Energy Group, a utility company organized as a public charitable trust. He is on the board of the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association and is president of the Economic Club of Indiana.
He has received numerous awards, including the Kenneth K. King Outstanding Management Award from Goodwill Industries International. In December 2000 he was named Nonprofit Executive of the Year by The NonProfit Times, a national business publication for nonprofit management. In 2009 he was inducted into the Central Indiana Business Hall of Fame.
McClelland earned a bachelor of industrial engineering degree from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business.
Kathleen Pawlus
Pawlus is the vice chair and CFO of the largest of Ernst & Young's seven global areas, comprising roughly 40 percent of the global firm. Also a member of the Americas Operations Group and the U.S. Executive Board, she has an influential voice at the firm.
She has spent her entire career at Ernst & Young. After nine years in auditing, she transferred to the firm's transactions practice, which deals with mergers and acquisitions. In transactions she learned to interpret a company's past performance to evaluate its future. She also learned to quickly identify trends, a skill that serves her well as the CFO. After spending time in the firm's Quality organization and leading several business units, she was asked to tackle the Americas CFO position.
Looking to the future is one of Pawlus's chief responsibilities as Americas vice chair and CFO. Overseeing finances, information technology and administration, she makes sure the firm is on stable financial ground, has an effective long-term IT strategy, and has an efficient, satisfied workforce -- all in support of the firm's client-serving professionals. She also contributes to Ernst & Young's overall strategic direction.
Pawlus earned a bachelor of science degree in business from IU. She is a Certified Public Accountant and is one of the region's representatives on the National Gender Equity Task Force.
James C. Thyen
Thyen has been with Kimball since 1966, when he also earned a MBA in finance from IU. He advanced at the international electronics and furniture company through managerial experience in numerous business areas, including finance, inventory control, cost management, fleet operations, human resources, and administration and information systems.
He joined the company's board of directors in 1982 and has served as Kimball International's president since July 1997. He was appointed as CEO in January 2004. Thyen holds corporate directorships with Kimball International and with FM Global of Johnston, R.I. He previously served on the advisory board of Allendale Mutual Insurance Co.
In 2004 he was named by the Securities and Exchange Commission to co-chair the Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies, which was formed to assess the regulatory system under the securities laws for small and mid-sized companies, including the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The committee delivered its final report in April 2006.
He is a former member of the Vincennes University Board of Trustees and served as chairman of its finance committee. He was a member of the Community College Policy Committee. He was a director of The Catholic Foundation of Southwestern Indiana Inc. and served as chairman of its board of trustees. He also served 10 years as a director of Memorial Hospital and Healthcare Center, based in Jasper, Ind. Thyen also has a bachelor of science degree in finance from Xavier University.
Conference Gold level sponsors include Ball Corp., BKD LLP, Deloitte, Eli Lilly and Co., FedEx Corp., and Kimball International. At the Silver level, sponsors include ArcelorMittal USA, CenterPoint Energy, Citizens Energy Group, Duke Energy, Ener1, Inc., Ernst & Young LLP, Hillenbrand Inc., Johnson Ventures Inc., Mesirow Financial and The Pampered Chef Ltd. Fifth Third Bank and Hanesbrands Inc. are Bronze level sponsors.
