Notice of Online Archive

  • This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.

    For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.

By Samuel T. Clover ’91

The most recent phase in the career of Barbara Brooks Kimmel ’78—and the seeds of her new book, Trust, Inc.: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset—began after the financial crash in 2008.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel '78  presents a lecture on corporate trust to students in the Industry, Strategy, and Policy course.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel ’78 presented a lecture on corporate trust to students in the Industry, Strategy, and Policy course Feb. 19.

“I think we have a real crisis in leadership, compounded with the fact that we live in such a transparent world now,” Kimmel says. “We don’t have a lot of role models. There’s a lack of accountability in government, industry, and sports. There are violators every day who are not punished.”

The international affairs graduate had published reference books on a variety of topics through her communications and marketing company, Next Decade Inc.

Inspired to increase awareness for best practices in business, she launched Trust Across America in 2009 with a website (trustacrossamerica.com), an Internet radio station, a LinkedIn group, and The FACTS Framework. The acronym is a model for auditing trust based on financial stability and strength (F), accounting conservativeness (A), corporate integrity (C), transparency (T), and sustainability (S).

Research and audits have yielded, among other programs, annual lists of the “Top 10 Most Trustworthy Public Companies” and the “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior.”

Good Business International named her one of “25 Women Who Are Changing the World” in 2012.

Barbara Kimmel '78 and son Dan Kimmel '16

Barbara Kimmel ’78 and Dan Kimmel ’16

In February, Kimmel along with Chris Caine ’78, president and CEO of Mercator XXI, came to campus to give a lecture about corporate trust to 150 students in the Industry, Strategy, and Policy course. Among the attendees was her son, Dan Kimmel ’16.

Categorized in: Alumni, Economics, Featured Alumni Success Stories, News and Features, Policy Studies
Tagged with: , , , ,