The Big Ten is America’s premier conference in producing chief financial officers, according to a report from executive search firm Crist|Kolder Associates, and with 15 sitting CFOs, the University is ranked No. 1 out of all other universities in the world.

The study was part of Crist|Kolder Associates’s annual Volatility Report, which looks at the backgrounds and measures the turnover of C-Suite executives in a portfolio of America’s leading companies. It examined the educational backgrounds of 602 sitting CFOs as of Aug. 1, 2013. It found that 69 of the CFOs at companies listed in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 — annual lists of the most profitable corporations in the U.S. — received undergraduate degrees from the Big Ten.

The Big East conference was runner-up in the study, with 53 CFOs.

“It’s not something that we are particularly surprised at because the College of Business has some of the strongest programs in the nation,” said Larry DeBrock, dean of the College of Business.

Jon Davis, department head of accounting at the University, said the Big Ten’s No. 1 ranking can be attributed to the fact that the University and Indiana University, which has 14 sitting CFOs, have highly ranked accounting programs.

However, Davis notes that the College of Business’s curriculum is what sets the University apart from other institutions.

“Our focus, to a large extent, is on more real business problems as opposed to just learning things out of a textbook,” Davis said. “We focus on things like business judgment, teamwork, critical thinking and dealing with ambiguous situations.”

Davis adds that the college’s curriculum is also tailored in a way that develops students to be leaders in the business field.

“We develop skills and abilities that will lend itself well to real situations as opposed to more technical aspects of accounting,” Davis said. “We give students the skill-set that people in the C-Suite need to have and that, to some significant extent, is reflected in our ranking.”

DeBrock said the high ranking is also largely because of the students that the college attracts.

“I think that other programs are good,” DeBrock said. “They’re just not as good as us. It is very competitive to get into the school, and we have many departments that are in the top 10 of national rankings.”

Adrianne Gimenez, freshman in Business, said the college’s reputation is what drew her to come to the University.

“I did a lot of research on the business program here,” Gimenez said. “I took a look at the successes of it here compared to other schools, and ultimately I felt that Illinois’s business school was a perfect mix of a strong education and available opportunities.”

Davis said it is no surprise that the University is one of the highest CFO-producing school because of its students.

“When we have amazing students here that means we are going to have amazing graduates,” he said.

Julianne can be reached at [email protected].