Over a 40-year career, Pound's focus has been on solving complex challenges involving vision, value, leadership, and governance. Though his firm, Integrity Brands, he has worked extensively with CEOs and boards, primarily at publicly-traded, consumer-facing companies, as an investor, board member, adviser, and leadership team member, to navigate challenges and find new pathways to unlock value. Earlier, through research and advocacy, he sought to strengthen the board-level process through which key directional challenges are debated and key decisions are made.
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Pound eared an A.B. in Political Economy from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Economics fromYale. In ten years on the Harvard faculty and two years at the Securities and Exchange Commission, he advocated for stronger, more engaged, more collaborative boards, and helped to develop and test new forms of constructive shareholder engagement at public companies. His work helped to lead the development of modern activist public equity investing. He worked with some of the largest and most visible American corporations to resolve controversies over valuation and mediate investor challenges. He published in many scholarly and popular journals, including The Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, The Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, and spoke internationally on governance reform.
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In 1997, Pound founded Integrity Brands, to take investment positions in undervalued publicly-traded consumer facing companies and work in partnership with leaders and boards to create value. Integrity has invested in, and helped to lead, oversee and advise on turnarounds and repositionings at over 20 public brands and retailers. Pound has helped rebuild and evolve visions, create new strategies, realign operating models, incubate new ventures, triage unsuccessful strategies and assets, plan distressed and growth financings, and oversee sales and restructurings. He has recruited new leaders, counselled and supported leadership teams, evolved board membership and operation, and overseen founder, leadership, and ownership transitions. Examples include Gymboree, Cost Plus World Market, RedEnvelop, Spy Optic, Kirkland's, Christopher & Banks, United Retail Group, Van's, and AT Cross. ​Pound has served as CEO at two public companies; Board Chair at three; Executive Chair at two; Lead Outside Director at one; and as a board member at five.
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Since 2021 Pound has been affiliated with the University of Arizona, advising on program development and teaching in the Eller College of Management. He is also involved with several nonprofit ventures.
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