For Kent Dauten, the 2026 V. Dale Cozad Lecture on Entrepreneurship was a homecoming of sorts. Although not an alum of Gies College of Business, he was very familiar with the College – his father had been a faculty member in the College for over two decades. So, Dauten had been around the campus quite a bit.
Dauten grew up in Champaign, where his father always had an academic answer to any business question, and his mother, who built and ran a series of student housing buildings, “was the practical one who would have to sweet talk or take the building inspector out for a cup of coffee in order to get her building permit.”
Dauten began his business career in 1979 at First Chicago Venture Capital, and then at its spinoff Madison Dearborn Partners, where he helped create the Midwest’s largest private equity investment firm. He later left to acquire and run a health care records management business, successfully merging it in 1997 into publicly traded Iron Mountain, where he continues as a director. In 1994, Kent cofounded Keystone Capital, a private equity firm which today owns a diverse portfolio of 20+ manufacturing and service businesses and where he currently serves as chairman.
At this year’s Cozad Lecture, he shared insights gained from his more than 40 years’ experience in investing and private equity. He was interviewed by Larry Gies (ACCY ’88).
Through his upbringing in Champaign, Dauten developed persistence, a skill that served him well when he was out searching for his first job. Even if a company did not have a job for him, he called people in the industry he was interested in just to see if they would talk to him about the company and their field. This led to one of the first pieces of advice he gave the audience. “Instead of calling people or emailing or reaching out, looking for a job – if you're interested in a field, approach people and say you just want to learn about business,” he said. “You want to learn about their firm, get to know them. Get to know the landscape of other players in that field, and they get to know you. There either is a job in that firm or there isn't, and if there isn't, they're still happy to talk.”
This way, Dauten got a wide variety of perspectives, a philosophy he still uses in business today. “I want every major investment decision to come to our full team. We do a staff meeting that's firmwide. Everybody’s around that conference room table. I don't care if you're two months out of Gies, or if you've been there [a while], or have an engineering degree, whatever your background. I want to share your voice on what the risks are, what the upside or opportunity is.” Having multiple perspectives, Dauten believes, helps ensure a sound investment decision.
Dauten also shared the importance that his charitable activities have had in his life. “I'm at that point in my career that I probably devote about 50% of my waking hours to volunteer civic and philanthropic work, partially because I also know my firm's in really good hands.”
This charitable work is personal. Two of Dauten’s children were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To help his children and the children of others, he and his wife have donated generously to research and treatment for this condition. “I've been told by people in the field, we are the largest funder of bipolar disorder in the country, or maybe the world, which is a sad commentary, because it's such an under invested in field,” he said.
One of the students at the event asked about risk-taking in finding first jobs. Dauten responded, “I actually advise people coming out of school – everybody in this room – to not necessarily go for the name brand, not necessarily go where 90% of your class is going. Maybe pick the job with the steepest learning curve. The best people are the ones that are going to give you the most rewarding opportunity to test your own decision.”
In the final questions of the event, a student asked what Dauten looked for in managers of companies he was going to invest in. “It's about management, which is always the hardest to calibrate. The key is spending a lot of time with them, making sure that you know what you're getting when you invest,” Dauten said. “And actually, more than anything, it's values, and knowing that we're partnering with someone who's going to be transparent with us when things are going bad as well as when they're going well, someone who's going to share our long-term orientation of building the business and building value, someone who’s going to treat their people fairly.”
About Kent Dauten
Kent Dauten was born and raised in Champaign, Illinois, where his father, Paul Dauten, was a business professor at Illinois for 25 years. His mother, Gloria Dauten, was a student housing entrepreneur. He started his business career in 1979 at First Chicago Venture Capital and then led its spinoff Madison Dearborn Partners, where he helped create the Midwest’s largest private equity investment firm. He later left to acquire and run a health care records management business, successfully merging it in 1997 into publicly traded Iron Mountain, where he continues as a director. In 1994, he cofounded Keystone Capital, a private equity firm which today owns a diverse portfolio of 20+ manufacturing and service businesses and where he currently serves as chairman.
Dauten has served on the boards of trustees of numerous civic and philanthropic organizations, and he and his wife Liz are active philanthropically in the field of brain science and health. They are proud parents of four children and grandparents to six young grandchildren. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude in economics from Dartmouth College in 1977 and his MBA from Harvard in 1979.
About the V. Dale Cozad Lecture on Entrepreneurship
This annual lecture series was established in 1997 to honor the memory of Dale Cozad, founder of Cozad Asset Management. It provides a way for Gies Business students to hear from alumni and other business experts who have been successful entrepreneurs in a wide variety of fields.