About Us

Transforming the Workplace by Training Up Leaders of Exemplary Character

The Lytle Center for Faith and Leadership is an academic center at Abilene Christian University.  The Center was endowed to serve the larger ACU community in character and leadership development efforts with a generous donor gift in 2015.  Initial efforts of the Center included sponsoring and advancing Leadership Summit and the Distinguished Speaker Series, two spiritually formative leadership events started by the founding Director and namesake for the Center, Dr. Rick Lytle.  Dr. Lytle was the Dean of the College of Business Administration at ACU from 1999-2016 and now serves as the CEO and President of CEO Forum and continues in a Director Emeritus role with the Lytle Center.

As the Lytle Center focuses on the vision of “transforming the workplace by training up leaders of exemplary character,” it seeks to serve the ACU community by offering curricular and co-curricular programming in the area of spiritual leadership development.  Grounded in the rich faith heritage of ACU, the Lytle Center strives to create environments conducive to the formation of leaders who have unrivaled character and leadership competency.  Since our primary focus is on formation, our programming and events are tailored to be communal experiences marked by relationship, accountability, and authenticity.  We couple this formational process with training in the latest research on effective leadership practices.  The Lytle Center actively  encourages the discovery and dissemination of organizational leadership research, specifically as it intersects with faith. 

Dennis J. Marquardt, PhD
Director

Dennis joined the Lytle Center in 2016, first as a Research Fellow and eventually as the Center Director in 2019.  He is also an Associate Professor of Management in ACU’s College of Business Administration where his teaching and research centers on leadership and ethics.  Dennis views his work at the Lytle Center to be at the crux of his professional mission:  To develop virtuous leaders that will help make organizations places where all humans have the opportunity to flourish.

Richard S. Lytle, PhD
Director Emeritus

Dr. Lytle is the founder and founding director of the Lytle Center for Faith and Leadership, transitioning into the Center’s Director Emeritus role in 2019.  He served as Dean of the College of Business Administration for 19 years and has been a member of ACU’s business faculty as a marketing professor since 1991.  Dr. Lytle currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the CEO Forum, Inc.