Dennis Gannon

Principal Executive Advisor, Corporate Executive Board

Photograph of Dennis Gannon

Teaching finance and math to at-risk youth in an alternative school setting proved to be an effective staging ground for Dennis Gannon’s career helping to educate corporate finance leaders on how they can best stay ahead of the market. Dennis, an executive advisor at CEB, notes that despite the different audiences the approach is basically the same: keep participants focused on their long-term vision in the face of ongoing, short-term distractions.

Dennis’ finance expertise places him squarely in the middle of one of the predominant challenges facing public companies: making effective capital allocation decisions in a slow-growth environment. The dilemma of where and how executives deploy the excess capital on their balance sheets carries with it both risks and opportunities, often hard to foresee until they create headlines.

Senior finance executives come to Dennis on a daily basis for his perspective on how best to maximize their returns on reinvesting in their businesses and when to return capital to shareholders.  In an era of uncertain growth opportunities and intense global competition, finance leaders rely on Dennis’ expertise to help create world-class budgeting, forecasting, and decision support processes within their organizations.

Since joining CEB in 2004, Dennis has become well known for his keen ability to connect the dots between finance functions and bring a long-term perspective to member challenges. This has made him highly sought after by CFOs, Treasurers and other finance leaders.

Prior to joining CEB, Dennis consulted professional sports franchises on customer retention strategies. He earned an M.B.A. with honors in Finance and Sports Business from the University of Oregon, and also holds an MA in Philosophy of Science and a BS in Mathematics from Virginia Tech. Dennis is based in Portland, Oregon. He is an outdoors enthusiast and you can find him most weekends hiking along the Oregon Coast, or playing his guitar during the many rainy days of the year.