Fifty years and over 10,000 students later, Professor Jack McDonald continues to guide new generations of investors.
The finance professor has brought many successful investors into his classroom, including Warren Buffett.
It has been a half a century since John G. (Jack) McDonald began teaching at Stanford Graduate School of Business. McDonald has taught over 10,000 MBA students and Executive Education participants.
This fall he taught, for the 50th year, Investment Management and Entrepreneurial Finance, a course on fundamental investing in public and private equity markets. McDonald’s other courses include Private Equity Investing, The Investment Seminar, and others within the Stanford Executive Program. The professor has brought many successful investors into his classroom, including Warren Buffett and Charles Munger.
McDonald has written more than 30 articles published in academic and professional journals on investment management, financial management, and the securities markets. Outside of academia, he was the first professor to serve as vice chairman of the NASD/NASDAQ from 1989 to 1990.
(Left to right): John Hurley, lecturer in finance; Stuart Klein, lecturer in finance; Jack McDonald, the Stanford Investors Professor of Finance; and Melody McDonald.
McDonald received his BS in Engineering from Stanford in 1960, MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1962, served as First Lieutenant Platoon Leader in the 25th Infantry Division of the US Army, and received a PhD in 1967.
After a year as assistant professor at HEC Paris, the international business school established in 1881, he became an assistant professor at Stanford GSB in 1968 and received a tenured professorship in 1975 and his first endowed chair in 1978.Professor McDonald doesn’t have plans to retire yet, though when he does Highland Hall and the Stanford Investors Chair, both made possible by the generosity of Jack’s former students and friends, will be renamed in his honor.
His wife, Melody L. McDonald, graduated from Stanford Music Department’s doctoral program In French Baroque in 1975 and Harvard Business School’s MBA program in 1986. They have been married for nearly 45 years.
— Toni Bird and Jenny Luna
For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom.
Explore More
