2024 Wharton Graduation Speakers

Wharton MBA Program for Executives Graduation Ceremony – San Francisco

Saturday, May 11, 2024

Keynote Speaker

Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.
Immediate Past President & CEO
TIAA

Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., is the Steven A. Tananbaum Distinguished Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the Immediate Past President and CEO of TIAA. Prior to joining TIAA, Roger was head of financial services for Swiss Re and Chairman of Swiss Re America Holding Corporation. Roger is the former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. He began his career as an attorney at the New York City office of Davis Polk & Wardwell and was an Associate and Partner at McKinsey & Company. Roger is a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He serves on the boards of Alphabet, Inc.; Corning, Inc.; and International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. Roger is also active as an advisor and board member with various private fintech companies. He serves on the boards of the Institute for Advanced Study, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and other non for profits. Roger holds a B.A., J.D., and a Ph.D. in economics, all from Harvard University.

Wharton MBA Program for Executives Graduation Ceremony – Philadelphia

Saturday, May 18, 2024

Keynote Speaker

Mohamed El-Erian
President of Queens’ College, Cambridge University
Senior Global Fellow, The Lauder Institute
Rene M. Kern Practice Professor, The Wharton School

Dr. Mohamed El-Erian is President of Queens’ College Cambridge, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, and Chair of Gramercy Funds. He is an advisor to the GIC Investment Strategies Committee and serves on the boards of Barclays and Under Armour, as well as non-profits such as the NBER. He is also a Senior Global Fellow at the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies and the Rene M. Kern Practice Professor at The Wharton School.

Previously, Mohamed was CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO (2007-2014), and is the former chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council (2012-2017). He was President and CEO of Harvard Management Company, Managing Director at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup, and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC.

Mohamed publishes regularly, and is a Financial Times Contributing Editor and Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has two New York Times’ best sellers – When Markets Collide (2008) and The Only Game in Town (2016) – and was named four years in a row to the Foreign Policy list of “Top Global Thinkers.” Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix our Fractured World –his new book co-authored with Gordon Brown, Michael Spence, and Reid Lidow – was published in Fall 2023.

Mohamed holds a BA/MA in Economics from Cambridge University, as well as a Masters and Doctorate in Economics from Oxford University.

Wharton Undergraduate Graduation Ceremony

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Keynote Speaker

Vivek Bantwal, W‘99
Head of Global Financing Group
Goldman Sachs

Vivek Bantwal is the head of the Global Financing Group at Goldman Sachs which consists of the firm’s debt and equity capital markets businesses, Leveraged Finance, Structured Finance, Real Estate Finance and Corporate Derivatives.  He serves as co-chair of the Firmwide Capital Committee and is a member of the Global Banking and Markets Operating Committee and the Investment Banking Executive Committee.

Vivek joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as an analyst and spent five years in structured finance prior to helping drive the development of the firm’s financing and risk management franchise for the Natural Resources business.  He became head of Structured Finance in the Americas in 2015.  In 2016 he became co-head of the newly formed Americas Credit Finance Group, consisting of the firm’s Structured Finance and Leveraged Finance businesses, and focused on providing clients integrated financing and strategic advice across a broad spectrum of the credit capital markets.  From 2019 to 2021 when he took his current role, Vivek was the Chief Operating Officer of the Global Markets division working closely with the division heads on the overall management of the division, as well as the development and execution of its strategic initiatives.  Across these roles, Vivek has a long track record of client focus, commercial growth, strategic innovation and people leadership including serving as firmwide captain of the University of Pennsylvania analyst recruiting team.

He serves on the Undergraduate Executive Board of the Wharton School, the Leadership Council of the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute at Mount Sinai, the Penn Council for Discovery Sciences, and the board of the American India Foundation.

Vivek was born and raised in the Philadelphia area.  He earned a BS in Economics, magna cum laude, from the Wharton School.  He now lives in Tribeca with his wife and three kids but remains a passionate Philadelphia sports fan.

Wharton MBA Graduation Ceremony

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Keynote Speaker

Mike Sievert, W’91
Chief Executive Officer
T-Mobile

Mike Sievert is chief executive officer, president and board director at T-Mobile US, Inc. He leads a customer-obsessed team of tens of thousands who are disrupting a tired category, putting customers first, and focusing on their mission to become the best in the world at connecting customers to their world.

Mike became CEO in April 2020 after previously serving as president, chief operating officer and chief marketing officer. During Mike’s tenure, T-Mobile has grown from a distant No. 4 domestic provider to, by some measures, the world’s most successful telecommunications company. Since Mike became CEO, the company has generated market-leading returns while outpacing key competitors in growth of customers, service revenues and cash flows, and expanding beyond wireless to become the nation’s fastest-growing provider of home broadband, as well.

Under Mike’s leadership, T-Mobile continues to offer the low prices and market-leading value that made it famous as the Un-carrier. Simultaneously, T-Mobile is leapfrogging the competition to offer the best 5G network, delivering on its dream to be the first ever to offer the unique combination of the best value and the best network, from the same company. With its advanced capabilities and AI-driven network deployment model, T-Mobile has earned broad recognition from third parties as the nation’s best 5G and overall network.

Today, Mike and team are charting the next era for T-Mobile, transitioning the Un-carrier from Challenger to Champion by creating new and better ways to serve customers as a deeply data-informed, AI-enabled, digital-first company.

In addition to offering tremendous value and perks to customers and businesses, the Un-carrier is increasing access to connectivity for millions of Americans. Groundbreaking programs such as Project 10Million provide free and subsidized service to millions of under-connected schoolchildren, and the Connecting Heroes initiative provides free and prioritized service to first-responder organizations. CNN Business recognized Mike as “CEO of the Year” in 2022, and Yale honored him in 2024 with its “Legend in Leadership Award,” in part due to the impact of these initiatives.

Prior to joining T-Mobile in 2012, Mike held management, product and marketing leadership positions at Microsoft, AT&T, E*TRADE, IBM, and Procter & Gamble. He currently serves on the Starbucks board of directors. Mike earned a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He is passionate about maritime activities and aviation, combining the two as a seaplane pilot. Mike also enjoys exploring the Pacific Northwest with his wife of more than 30 years, Suzanne, and their two adult children.