Giving
The King of Giving Back
For Ernst & Young Partner, Bauer College Remains Top Priority
AS A NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLAR, JOHN KING GOT A FULL RIDE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON, AND HE NOW FEELS IT HIS DUTY TO GIVE BACK. OF HIS MANY VOLUNTEER ROLES AT UH, THE ERNST & YOUNG EXECUTIVE SAYS: “I GET TO STAY VERY CONNECTED TO THE FACULTY AND THE STUDENTS AND GET TO CONTRIBUTE THERE.”
I came from a pretty small town. I had never really interacted on a big stage like that and certainly never knew people like I met at Bauer and have stayed friends with. It had a big impact on me.
JOHN KING
(BBA ’92)
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Ask Ernst & Young executive John King (BBA ’92) why he wanted to get into business in the first place, and he’ll tell you because it’s easy to see the results.
By any measure, his life has been distinguished by a series of remarkable results and accomplishments, from his youthful days as a Bauer College National Merit Scholar and summa cum laude graduate to his current role as EY’s Southwest Region Assurance Managing Partner.
While King oversees 1,400 employees in 12 offices across nine states, he maintains strong and meaningful ties to his alma mater, where he serves on the Bauer College Board, the Honors College Advisory Board, the Bauer College Foundation Board and the UH Board of Visitors.
Why is he so driven to serve? “UH took a chance on me,” he says of his scholarship. “No reason they had to do that. And I just always felt like if I had the opportunity, I would do what I could to contribute. And I feel really lucky to be doing that."
We recently spoke to the Kansas City, Kansas, native and longtime Houstonian about how Bauer shaped him, first as an accounting dynamo and now as a philanthropist.
Q: How did the Honors College experience help you?
A: What the Honors College teaches you is how to communicate with others, how to be persuasive in writing and verbally, how to appreciate different perspectives, appreciate people with different talents and skills. So now most of my work is with very sophisticated people: boards and CEOs, CFOs ... people who may not understand accounting. They are doing arguably more important things: running companies, discovering products or inventing products. So I think my time in the Honors College made me a much more well-rounded person.
Q. Why do you think Bauer is so special?
A: In my role I get to spend time at many of the major colleges and universities in the country. The thing that’s unique about Bauer: I think the faculty are special. They care a ton about the students, and they are very, very focused on reallife applications of what they teach. That's not true everywhere.
Q. And how did that affect you personally?
A: You interact with people of all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of different ambitions. For me, I came from a pretty small town. I had never really interacted on a big stage like that and certainly never knew people like I met at Bauer and have stayed friends with. It had a big impact on me.
Q. Why is it so important for you now to give back?
A: For my wife and me, it’s a real joy. I think we both were raised with the notion: "Hey, if you have the opportunity to give back, in whatever way you can, you ought to do it."
At EY, our people believe that the communities we work in have been hugely generous to us, and part of that is being involved in those communities and being leaders in those communities. For me, it’s been great.
