Denny K Beran

Denny K. Beran, JCPenney’s senior vice president of audit, was keynote speaker at recent induction ceremony.

The UT Dallas chapter of the international business honorary society Beta Gamma Sigma celebrated its 10th anniversary by inducting a record number of new members at a recent ceremony in the Naveen Jindal School of Management.

JCPenney executive Denny K. Beran, an active Jindal School supporter and head of a worldwide professional organization of more than 170,000 members, delivered the keynote address during the April 4 celebration.

Beran, JCPenney’s senior vice president of audit and chairman of the board for  The Institute of Internal Auditors, welcomed new juniors, seniors and graduate students into the society. In all, 162 students gained lifelong membership in Beta Gamma Sigma. The organization’s Greek signature letters stand for honor, wisdom and earnestness. The society recognizes outstanding academic success in collegiate business programs accredited by AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). It invites only undergraduates in the top 10 percent of their classes and graduate students with grade-point averages of 3.85 or better.

Monica Powell congratulates Madhan Thirukonda

Naveen Jindal School of Management Associate Dean Monica Powell congratulates Beta Gamma Sigma inductee Madhan Thirukonda.

Chapter President Monica Powell, the Jindal School’s associate dean for graduate programs, said the latest induction brings the UT Dallas chapter’s membership to 1,084.

She attributed the record number of 2012 inductees and growing interest to recent economic hard times. “Students have really started to value being associated with academic honor organizations because they offer a distinctive quality that sets them apart for employers,” Powell said. “BGS has grown so much. Companies now recognize that members are highly motivated top achievers who are likely to do well.”

Beran, the keynote speaker and an honorary inductee in the society,  recounted his own road to success, beginning with the interview process during his senior year of college. His values-oriented career search led to “the perfect, perfect match in the JCPenney company.”

Beran encouraged the students who are interviewing to determine if the companies they are interested in “have the values and principles that correlate with yours.”

In his own review of JCPenney, Beran said he discovered that in 1913, in formalizing the corporation, J.C. Penney and his partners adopted a company motto built upon honor, confidence, service and cooperation.

From left; Namkyung Yang and Sarah Kienle

Students Namkyung Yang (foreground) and Sarah Kienle were welcomed into the business honorary society.

Managers entering into the partnership pledged their loyalty to these principles, Beran said. “You see, Mr. Penney not only wanted his associates to know these principles, he wanted his associates to live by these principles.”

Those principles remain as relevant today as they were in 1913, Beran said, and they “define the heritage” left by Penney and his partners, “who made moral values and individual character the foundation on which to build a great enterprise.”

Beran, who is a member of Jindal School’s Internal Auditing Excellence Advisory Board and chairman of the Center for Internal Auditing Excellence’s Endowment Committee, also shared his perspective on the value of honor and integrity.

“These principles are like a rock — time-tested and changeless in our ever-changing world,” he said. “Honor and integrity confer respect because they are a constant guide to what is right and just.”