Professor of the Practice Profile

Stephen Wallenstein Professor of the Practice Director, Directors’ Institute M.A., Harvard University J.D., Yale Law School 4458 Van Munching Hall Phone: 301-405-7177 E-mail: swallens@rhsmith.umd.edu

Steve Wallenstein is a Professor of the Practice at the Robert H. Smith School of Business and he is also director of the Directors' Institute at the Smith School, an ongoing series to address the corporate governance failures of diligence, ethics and controls in corporate America. Wallenstein is a recognized expert in corporate governance and best practices for publicly traded companies in the US and abroad. From 1998 to 2009 he was a faculty member at the Fuqua School of Business and Duke Law School, founded the Duke Directors' Education Institute (DEI) in 2002, and established the Duke Global Capital Markets Center (GCMC) in 1998, a collaborative venture between Fuqua and Duke Law.

Wallenstein is also an expert on emerging markets, having spent fifteen years as Senior Counsel and Senior Investment Officer at the International Finance Corporation in Washington D.C. He was responsible for structuring and negotiating international project finance, privatizations and capital markets transactions in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Wallenstein, who speaks fluent Portuguese, maintains close ties with Brazil where he taught law and development at the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, as well as a course on the Global Financial Crisis at Fundacao Getulio Vargas. He was a member of the Board of Directors of CVRD – INCO (Canada) and a member of the Audit Committee from 2006-2007, and a corporate governance advisor to the Management Committee of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (VALE) from 2007-2009.

Wallenstein has taught several interdisciplinary courses on corporate governance, venture capital and private equity, and international finance.