Susan Blount

Susan Blount served as General Counsel of Prudential Financial, a leading provider of insurance, retirement and asset management products and services from 2005 to 2015, first as a Senior Vice president and later as Executive Vice President. She was a member of the Company’s Office of the Chairman Group, the six senior-most officers of the company, and led a team of 700 people around the world in the company’s Law, Compliance, Business Ethics and External Affairs organization.

Susan is an independent outside director of two public companies: Cavco Industries (NASDAQ: CVCO) and CS Disco (NYSE: LAW). She was a 2017 Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University.

Susan is active in professional and community service. While at Prudential she served on the Boards of such organizations as Montclair State University (the second largest university in New Jersey), the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity, and the Association of Corporate Counsel She was also a regular presenter at Stanford University’s Directors’ College and a regular participant in Stanford’s Institutional Investors Forum.

A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law (Texas Law), she has been an adjunct professor at Texas Law since 2016 and currently serves as Chair of the University of Texas Law School Foundation.

Ethan Burris

Dr. Ethan Burris holds the King Ranch Chair Professorship of Management at McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where he’s also the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for Leadership and Ethics. A Cornell University Ph.D. graduate, Dr. Burris has been a Visiting Scholar at Google and Microsoft. He teaches and consults on topics relating to leadership, people analytics, talent insights, managing power and politics, and building engagement in groups and teams. His research centers on “employee voice,” exploring how leaders influence whether employees share or withhold ideas, and the impact of these behaviors on individual and organizational performance. His research has appeared in several top management and psychology journals and has been covered in major media outlets such as the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the Houston Chronicle.

Eliot Cotton

Eliot Cotton is a Professor and the Director of the Texas Law and Business Program. He teaches Private Equity and Venture Capital Fund Formation. Along with Susan Morse and Dean Chesney, Prof. Cotton is responsible for creating the curriculum and programming for the Texas Law and Business Program. Prior to joining Texas Law, he served as Co-General Counsel and Managing Director at Riverstone Holdings, a New York-based private equity firm. There, he played a key role in investments in decarbonization, renewable energy, and infrastructure projects through both private equity and credit platforms. Prior to joining Riverstone, Prof. Cotton was an attorney at Vinson & Elkins L.L.P., where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital. Prof. Cotton received his B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and his J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law in 2010.

Simon Lorne

Simon Lorne is the former Vice Chairman and Chief Legal Officer, and currently Senior Advisor, of Millennium Management LLC, a global asset management firm with assets under management of approximately $65 Billion. Prior to joining Millennium, Mr. Lorne was a partner in the Los Angeles based law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP; a Managing Director and global head of internal audit at Salomon Brothers; Managing Director and global head of compliance at Citigroup; and General Counsel of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He also currently serves on the board of directors and chairs the audit committee of Teledyne Technologies, Inc.  (New York Stock Exchange: TDY). He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at The University of Texas at Austin.  Mr. Lorne holds an A.B. from Occidental College and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

Kathleen McAllister 

Kathleen McAllister is a seasoned Board Director and former NYSE-listed company CEO and CFO, with diverse leadership roles in global, capital-intensive companies in the energy value chain, who brings a broad strategic perspective to the complex challenges of operating and financing cyclical businesses in the global marketplace. Kathleen is engaged with an active board portfolio, currently serving as an independent director for Black Hills Corp. and Hoegh LNG Partners. On the not-for-profit front, Kathleen focuses on families in need, education and mentoring, serving on the National Association of Corporate Directors Texas TriCities Chapter Board and on the University of Houston-CL Business School Dean’s Advisory Council. Kathleen is a Certified Public Accountant (Texas), the 2022 University of Houston-CL Distinguished Alumni, holds the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity and was named to the 2023 NACD Directorship 100 for leadership in corporate governance.

Susan Morse

Susan Morse is the Angus G. Wynne, Sr. Professor of Civil Jurisprudence and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law. She has responsibility for the curriculum and for teaching excellence at Texas Law. She teaches property, finance and accounting for lawyers, and tax and has won law school teaching awards. She studies tax policy, tax and administrative law, and regulatory design. Her most recent scholarship focuses on safe harbors and old regulations, including those in business and securities law. She graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and from Harvard Law School.