Our People
Watch VideoActon Scholars are led by successful entrepreneurs who are master teachers and who are fully committed to preparing you for an exciting, profitable and meaningful life in business.
Our entrepreneur-teachers are:
- Proven in the boardroom and gifted in the classroom
- Running successful businesses, leading venture capital firms, and coaching entrepreneurs
- Teaching a select group of driven students, giving the Acton MBA the lowest teacher-student ratio of any graduate business school in the nation
- Dedicated to seeing you succeed in class and in your career
Teacher Profiles
Ed Perry
Teacher
Credentials:
- Founder, CEO, or Managing Director of ten successful companies in the industries of oil & gas, electronics, software, consulting and venture capital
- General Partner, Murphree Venture Partners
- Bachelor's and Master's degrees, Rice University
Jack Long
Founder, Teacher
Credentials:
- Co-founder of Lone Star Overnight and PeopleAdmin, Inc.
- A top-ranked Entrepreneurship professor for the Acton MBA and formerly for the University of Texas.
- MBA Vanderbilt University; B.S. University of Richmond.
Jeff Serra
Teacher
Credentials:
- Founded ReNEW Energy and Eyes of Texas Partners
- Former chairman, president and CEO of Phibro Energy
- MS industrial management, Purdue University; B.S. civil engineering, University of Virginia
Phil Siegel
Founder, Teacher
Credentials:
- Founded Newgistics and three other companies
- Current managing general partner at Austin Ventures; former partner at the Boston Consulting Group
- MBA and B.S., University of Chicago.
Kimberly Watson-Hemphill
Teacher
Credentials:
- Founder of Firefly Consulting
- Previously, a Partner with Accenture Management Consulting and a Vice President with George Group Consulting
- Author of Fast Innovation
- Masters of Engineering Mechanics from The University of Texas; BSE in Aerospace Engineering and BA in French from The University of Michigan
Jeff Sandefer
Founder, Teacher
Credentials:
- Founded or co-founded five successful companies. Formerly managed Sandefer Capital, an energy investment firm
- Named by BusinessWeek as one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in the United States
- MBA Harvard Business School; BS University of Texas
Jeff Connally
Teacher
Credentials:
- President & CEO, CMIT Solutions, Inc
- Founder of Uplink Corporation; co-founded Gener8Biz
- Worked for twenty years as a top sales and marketing executive in software, hardware and information service companies, including Stratfor/Infraworks, ReCompute, Globalsoft, and IBM
- MBA from the University of Texas; B.A., business and humanities, St Michael’s College (Vermont)
Joe Fulwiler
Teacher
Credentials:
- Founder, Fulwiler Law
- Executive at Coremetrics, Spinner.com, and Booz Allen & Hamilton
- MBA, Stanford University; JD, Columbia University; BA, Economics, Yale
Jamie Matthews
Teacher
Credentials:
- Co-founder and Mentor for Explore Austin, a non-profit dedicated to mentoring and building leadership skills in young boys through outdoor adventures
- Owner and Principal in real estate transactions totaling over $29 million in Texas, Colorado, and California
- Co-founder of The Tecumseh Foundation, a Texas based foundation that supports a wide variety of charities, scholarship programs, and non-profits
- MBA, Acton; MBA, National University (California); B.A., psychology, Vanderbilt University
Ellen L. Fleming
Teacher
Credentials:
- Launching a software start-up
- Former Executive with Dell Inc.
- General Motors Fellow
- MBA from Harvard Business School; B.Sc., GMI Engineering Management Institute; B.A. Economics, University of Toronto
Ted W. Beasley
Teacher
Credentials:
- Co-Founder Gateway Church
- Start-up Entrepreneur in the United States, Eastern Europe and Australia
- Strategic and Financial Consultant for emerging and senior leaders in corporate America
- MBA from The University of Texas
Bill Jones
Practitioner
Credentials:
- Co-founded and managed Queensland Energy Resources and Shale Tech International
- Former Vice President of Energy Development with Ziff Brothers Investments; Principal with Sandefer Capital Partners; Venture Consultant at Austin Ventures
- MBA from The University of Texas; B.S. Geosciences, University of Arizona
Steven Tomlinson
Teacher
Credentials:
- Formerly a top ranked economics and finance professor in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas
- Designed and directed the McCombs Plus Program;directed the MBA Professional Development at UT
- Ph.D.,economics, Stanford University; BA, with honors, University of Oklahoma