Athens, Ga. — David G. Hanna, chairman and CEO of CompuCredit Corp., will present the first spring lecture of the Terry Leadership Speaker Series on Friday, Feb. 1, at 10 a.m. in room 248 of the University of Georgia’s Student Learning Center.
Hanna’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement at UGA’s Terry College of Business.
Hanna has served as CompuCredit’s chief executive since the company was founded in 1996. CompuCredit markets its credit services to consumer borrowers with low credit scores who are often bypassed by traditional financial institutions.
Hanna, who graduated from Terry College in 1986, has extensive experience in the credit industry. He co-founded Account Portfolios in 1990 with his brother Frank, who earned business and law degrees from UGA. Account Portfolios quickly became one of the largest purchasers of distressed debt in the United States. Between 1990 and 1995, the company purchased more than 3 million accounts with a face value in excess of $3 billion. The business was sold in 1995 to OSI.
Prior to that, Hanna was president of the Government Services division of Nationwide Credit. Nationwide was one of the top five receivables management companies in the country. Nationwide Credit, owned by Hanna’s father, was sold in 1990 to First Financial Management. Hanna began his career as a lending officer for C&S National Bank in Atlanta.
“The credit industry has had to deal with tremendous economic difficulty in the past 12 months,” said Terry College Dean Robert T. Sumichrast. “These kind of challenges that leaders face and the opportunities he’s had to lead others throughout his career are lessons that are important for our students to hear. That’s what we’re trying to make possible for our students through the Terry Leadership Speaker Series.”
The speaker series brings accomplished leaders from a variety of organizations to the University of Georgia. In these student-oriented forums, guest speakers discuss their leadership styles and experiences.
This spring, the speaker series will feature:
Cynthia Cooper, the WorldCom whistleblower who uncovered the largest corporate fraud in U.S. history. She was named one of Time magazine’s 2002 Persons of the Year after reporting the fraud and became the first woman inducted into the American Institute of CPAs’ Hall of Fame in 2004. Cooper is also the author of the forthcoming Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower. Cooper’s speech will take place Tuesday, March 4, at 6 p.m. in room 101 of the Student Learning Center.
Allison O’Kelly, founder and CEO of Mom Corps. Headquartered in Marietta, Ga., Mom Corps is a nationwide professional staffing company that helps corporations fill their intermittent staffing needs, while enabling professionals who are raising families to engage in challenging work on a flex-time basis. Before founding Mom Corps in 2005, the 1994 Terry College graduate built her own accounting practice, was an executive at Toys “R” Us and a CPA at KPMG Peat Marwick. O’Kelly’s speech is set for Friday, March 28, at 10 a.m. in room 248 of the Student Learning Center.
Tom Cousins, chairman emeritus and founder of Cousins Properties Inc. A Terry College graduate from 1952, Cousins founded the company in 1958. Today it is one of the larger equity real estate investment trusts in the country, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Cousins Properties developed such landmarks in Atlanta as the CNN Center, the Omni Coliseum and Wildwood Office Park in Cobb County. Cousins’ speech will take place Friday, April 25, at 10 a.m. in room 248 of the Student Learning Center.
The Institute for Leadership Advancement is a leadership development unit housed in the Terry College of Business. Its programs stress the importance of principled leadership based on core values and emphasize leadership as a collaborative process and not as a position. The institute’s ultimate aim is to create a new class of leaders who are well trained and ready for responsibility, committed to stewardship, pursuers of excellence, characterized by integrity and defined by purpose.
