By: Jess Larkin ~Copy Editor~

Xavier’s Heroes of Professional Ethics lecture series is back this year with seven-time Emmy Award winner John Quiñones, ABC’s first Latino correspondent.

As a speaker in the series, Quiñones will discuss professional ethics and encourage students to practice responsibility in the workforce, topics that the Williams College of Business hopes will resonate with students.

“Sound business ethics is at the core of success in business,” Professor Ann Marie Tracey, J.D., co-director of the Cintas Institute for Business Ethics, said.

“It is the means through which companies gain the trust of their employees, customers and those with whom it does business. It ensures sound management practices and good governance. Operating at a level beyond which the law requires reaps great rewards, personal satisfaction and minimizes risk,” Tracey said.

Quiñones grew up in a family of migrant workers in San Antonio and was a first-generation college student and a graduate of Columbia’s School of Journalism.

He has been a correspondent for ABC since the early 1980s, appearing on a variety of the network’s programming, including “Primetime,” “Good Morning America” and “20/20.”
In one segment, Quiñones met with orphans and their caretaker living in the sewers of Bogotá, Colombia. Such an endeavor garnered more than $1 million in viewers’ donations, which led to the construction of an orphanage in Bogotá.

Quiñones also anchors “What Would You Do?, ” a hidden-camera “Primetime” series in which he creates scenarios of conflict or ethical dilemma in public places to observe how bystanders would react in those situations.

He joins Mark Whitacre, Erin Brockovich, Frank Abagnale and Cynthia Cooper in the line-up of keynote speakers that the Williams College of Business has hosted for the lectures series.
“Ethics is at the heart of Xavier’s mission,” Tracey said. “Living the ethical life evokes magis, bringing the greatest good, and is a means through which we can care for others and be in solidarity and kinship with them.”

The lecture series is presented by Xavier’s Williams College of Business and sponsored by Jerry and Janey Belle, Xavier’s Cintas Institute for Business Ethics and Women of Excellence. Quiñones will speak at 6:30 p.m. on March 24 at Cintas Center in the Duff Banquet Room.
The event is free but requires an RSVP by March 19 at xavier.edu/williams.