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John Allison

Author Profile

John Allison

John A. Allison will become president of the Cato Institute in Washington,D.C., on October 1, 2012. He is the retired chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the tenth largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States.

Allison began his service with BB&T in 1971 and was elected chairman and CEO in July 1989. During Allison’s tenure as CEO, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. In March 2009, he joined the faculty of Wake Forest University School of Business as Distinguished Professor of Practice.

He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his master’s degree in management from Duke University (1974). He is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and has received six honorary doctorate degrees. He was recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of the top 100 most successful CEO’s in the world over the last decade.

He serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Board of Directors of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and the Ayn Rand Institute.

Articles by John Allison


About Those “BB&T Courses”

Sep 9, 2012 · John Allison · No Comments on About Those “BB&T Courses”

The entrepreneur who brought Ayn Rand to scores of campuses explains how and why.

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Recent Articles

  • A Modest Proposal for Fixing the College Modern Language Requirement Jan 15, 2021

    In her fine opinion piece for the Martin Center, Megan Zogby bemoans the “Quixotic” requirement that North Carolina college and university students take between two and four courses in a language such as Spanish, French, or German. This requirement, Zogby asserts, “appears to have no meaningful effect on the language proficiency of college graduates.” What is more, … Continue reading “A Modest Proposal for Fixing the College Modern Language Requirement”

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  • The Spurning of Old Books: The Devaluation of the Past Threatens Higher Ed Jan 13, 2021

    Alan Jacobs’ new book, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, is a coaxing argument to read “old books that come from strange times.” Readers of his previous works The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction and How to Think will not be surprised that Jacobs, distinguished … Continue reading “The Spurning of Old Books: The Devaluation of the Past Threatens Higher Ed”

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