Shenandoah University’s Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business will hold a panel discussion on Morality and Capitalism at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 5, in Halpin-Harrison Hall, Stimpson Auditorium (1460 University Drive, Winchester,).
A question and answer session will follow. The event is free and open to the public, and is part of the school of business’s ongoing Distinguished Lecture Series. Light refreshments will be provided during a pre-event reception at 5:30 p.m.
“We find ourselves in a time where people are not just concerned with where their money is invested, but also where it is spent,” said Dean of the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business Miles Davis, Ph.D. “The idea that financial matters have a moral component is a challenge to the traditional idea that products and services in a capitalist society are amoral and that profitability is the overarching goal of an organization. We are excited to have with us a panel who can address the issues of morality and capitalism from a scholarly and practitioner perspective.”
Dr. Davis is set to facilitate the panel, which includes Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sterling Management Group, Inc. M. Yaqub Mirza, Ph.D.; Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business Eldon R. Lindsey Chair of Free Enterprise and Professor of Economics and Finance Clifford Thies, Ph.D.; and Christian financial counselor and author Gary Moore.
As founder, president and chief executive officer of Sterling Management Group, Inc., Dr. Mirza negotiates mergers, acquisitions, and sales of various-sized companies located in different parts of the world. Sterling and its affiliates operate in the United States, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. In addition, Mirza has more than thirty years of experience in stock investments and portfolio management.
He is the founding trustee and chairman of the board of trustees of Amana Mutual Funds, which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also serves on the boards of numerous other organizations, including several for-profit and not-for-profit, as well as academic institutions.
Mirza is a member of the Shenandoah University board of trustees, and in that capacity, serves on both the finance committee and the investment and endowment committee. He also serves on the board of advisors for the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business. Mirza is a George Mason University Foundation trustee and a member of the board of advisors for George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences in Fairfax, Virginia.
He holds a M.Sc. from the University of Karachi (1969), as well as a Ph.D. in physics (1974) and an M.A. in teaching science (1975) from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Dr. Thies is the author, co-author, contributor or editor of 105 books, encyclopedia articles and articles in scholarly journals; most recently, “The Chicago Record Poll and the Election of 1896,” which is forthcoming in Presidential Studies Quarterly. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Private Enterprise and was a Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
Thies is past president of the faculty senates of Shenandoah University and the University of Baltimore, and previously served on the faculties of the University of Baltimore and the University of Montana. He served in the U.S. Army and the Army Reserve. Thies was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from Boston College in 1982.
Mr. Moore recently retired after more than four decades on Wall Street. He is the author of five books, including “Faithful Finances 101” and “Spiritual Investments.” His books discuss the integration of faith and finance, predominantly focusing on socially responsible business and investing. Moore is the founder of The Financial Seminary, a nonprofit ministry, to build bridges between the financial and moral communities. He also founded his own investment firm, Gary Moore & Company, as “counsel to ethical and spiritual investors.”
Moore has served as a trustee of Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, chairing the church’s endowment committee; as a trustee on the investment committee of Messiah College; as a board member of the John Templeton Foundation; as a board advisor to Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp in Empower America; as a lay leader of both Lutheran and the Episcopal churches; as a financial commentator for UPI Radio and Skylight Radio Network; and as a board member for Opportunity International, a micro-enterprise organization making $200 loans to the entrepreneurial poor in the Third World. Moore holds a degree in political science from the University of Kentucky.
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