Women Leaders Headline 2018 MBA Commencement Addresses
With spring fully in sway, classes have come to an end on many leading business school campuses, and commencement activities fill weekend after weekend from now through June. The roster of speakers top schools invite to send their MBA graduates off into the world can be revealing.
Graduation speakers are typically invited to impart hard-earned wisdom and present words of encouragement to MBA classes, and this year is no exception in that regard. More exceptional, though, is the number of women delivering the headlining speeches.
Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest at NYU Stern
NYU’s Stern School of Business selected Sallie Krawcheck to headline its 2018 Graduate Convocation ceremony on Friday May 18.
Krawcheck is currently CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, an investment firm designed for women, which “aims to serve women [investors’] needs…using an algorithm tailored specifically to women’s incomes and life cycles.”
Sallie Krawcheck / Photo Ellevest
The company has racked up a slew of accolades, among them inclusion in both Nerdwallet’s “Best Robo Advisors of 2018” and Entrepreneur Magazine’s “100 Brilliant Ideas of 2017.”
In a preview of her speech, Krawcheck spoke about our “tumultuous and confusing times,” challenging individuals to evaluate their own personal “ideas of ethical leadership and who we really are,” as well as the ways in which we consider our careers as they relate to our responsibility to the world around us.
“We have to decide if we’re going to be that person who does the right thing. We have to decide if we’re going to commit to equality, to diversity, and to using the power of business to make the world a better place.”
Vice Chairwoman of Morgan Stanley Carla Harris at Harvard Business School
On May 23, Harvard Business School welcomed Morgan Stanley Vice Chairwoman Carla Harris, whose distinguished career spans three decades.
Carla Harris / Photo via Fast Comapny
Harris has been named to Fortune’s list of the “50 Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate America” and its “Most Influential List” and appeared in similar lists in wide-ranging publications including U.S. Banker, Black Enterprise, Essence Magazine, and Ebony.
Harris has also received honorary doctorates from seven different institutions including Marymount Manhattan College, Jacksonville University, and Simmons College.
Instagram COO Marne Levine at Michigan Ross
One of the first commencement addresses of the season took place on Friday, April 27, at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where Instagram’s Chief Operating Officer Marne Levine delivered a rousing headlining speech.
Ross Dean Scott DeRue introduced Levine with remarks about her inspirational career and commitment to her work’s impact on society. DeRue added that he sought to invite someone “who role models the leadership we aspire to.” He also praised Levine’s “transformative and positive impact on how we live, work, and interact with each other.”
Marne Levine / Photo via Collective Hub
With more than 700 million users worldwide, Instagram has become an iconic brand due in no small part to Levine’s efforts to scale the company’s business and operations at a global level.
She has been COO at Instagram since 2014 and before that served as VP of global public policy with parent company Facebook. Levine’s roots, however, are in the political arena: She worked in the Obama administration as chief of staff of the National Economic Council, worked under Harvard President Larry Summers, and began her career in the Department of the Treasury during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
You can watch Levine’s speech below.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Babson Expands Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Women MBAs
While more women than ever are earning MBAs, there’s still a lot to be done to advance the role of women in business. Though the average enrollment of women in full-time MBA programs at 36 top business schools climbed from 32 percent to 36 percent between 2011 and 2015, that growth hasn’t necessarily been reflected in the workforce yet. Women occupy only 22.9 percent of board positions for Fortune 500 companies and only 6.4 percent of CEO positions.
Babson’s Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab is part of that school’s effort to bridge this gap and increase the number of women leaders in business. Continue reading…
Entrepreneur Magazine Spotlights Drucker Alum
Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi ito Graduate School of Management alum, Mark Hatch, has been named one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s 12 veterans who “changed business forever.”
Fox Temple Earns Top 10 In Princeton Review, Entrepreneur Magazine
Among Philadelphia’s ever-growing list of exceptional business schools, the Fox School of Business at Temple University has earned the right to stand out.
In the 2017 list of the nation’s best entrepreneurship MBA programs for undergraduates and graduates from the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine, Fox Temple was the only school in the city to earn both honors—earning its way into the top 10 for each list.
This is the second year in a row Fox Temple managed to secure rankings on each list, coming in at 8th overall for its undergraduate program and 9th for its graduate program—one spot higher than last year.
“It’s rewarding to see our entrepreneurship programs recognized nationally, and in the company of prestigious schools,” said dean M. Moshe Porat shortly after the rankings were announced in mid-November. “Entrepreneurship education is a pillar across Temple University, and we at the Fox School are proud to lead this charge. More and more resources have been made available to students from all 17 schools and colleges at Temple. Our mission is to prepare and encourage students to think and act like entrepreneurs, no matter where their careers guide them.”
Topping this year’s list, unsurprisingly, was Harvard Business School, followed shortly after by the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago to round out the top five.
The list was compiled after examining surveys from over 300 schools between May and August of 2016. The final tabulation considered academics and requirements, students and faculty, alumni entrepreneurship ventures, how students worked outside of the traditional classroom setting, school competitions and scholarships/aid.
The news of Fox Temple’s newest honor follows a successful string of accolades through various other authorities, including the Financial Times, which named the school’s Executive MBA program as the 18th best in the U.S. Check out some of Fox Temple’s other prestigious honors here.
