management blog

Students at Canada’s Richard Ivey School of Business will have an unusual guest speaker on Thursday: Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who served four years in prison after bringing down Barings Bank. Mr Leeson will aid the students in a case study analysing the bank’s collapse, while giving tips on the safeguards needed to prevent similar debacles. Afterwards, the students will take part in the “Ivey Ring Tradition Ceremony”, in which they pledge “to act ethically and honestly in all their activities”.

Ivey confirms that it is paying an undisclosed sum to Mr Leeson to come over. The website of the agency that represents him says his normal fee for an after dinner speech ranges from £6,000-£10,000 ($11,800-$19,700; €7,600-€12,700). To give a little perspective, Sir Geoff Hurst, England’s 1966 World Cup hero, costs £2,500-£5,000.

The Canadian business school says that Mr Leeson makes it clear in his presentations that he “deeply regrets” his actions and that his sentence was justified. “For future business leaders, it’s important not to just focus on success, but to also hear how people get themselves into trouble,” it adds.

A recent article in Business Week shows that Ivey is by no means alone in bringing in an ex-con to lecture its young thrusters. The piece focuses on “one of the busiest convicted felons on the B-school speaking circuit”: Walter Pavlo Jr, who graduated with an MBA from the Stetson School of Business at Mercer University and later served a prison sentence for fraud conducted while he worked at MCI. ”All you need to know to cook the books you learn in your first semester of accounting,” Business Week quoted him as telling students at Purdue University.

Perhaps Conrad Black’s people are already fielding requests for business school appearances after his release from prison.

Do you think the practical benefits of giving business school students first-hand exposure to reformed white-collar criminals exceeds the grubbiness of paying them to appear? Please comment below.