Dean's Remarks to the Graduating Class of 2026

Graduates, faculty and staff, and honored guests: welcome to the 2026 Graduation Ceremony of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Let me begin by recognizing two groups of people who have made this day possible.

To our faculty and staff: thank you for the rigor, care, and commitment you bring to this institution every day. I ask you to stand so we can express our appreciation.

To the families and friends here with us today: thank you for your support, your patience, and your belief in these graduates. This achievement belongs to you as well. I ask you to stand so we can express our appreciation.

This year, we celebrate 100 years of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This centennial year has given us the opportunity to reflect on the school’s history and on the many individuals who have passed through it. But today is not only about the past. It is about you — the Class of 2026.

You arrived here from around the world, bringing different experiences, ambitions, and paths. And like the classes before you, you made a deliberate decision to step away from what was familiar to you so that you could invest in your growth and change the trajectory of your lives.

That decision took courage. The world you are graduating into looks very different from the world when you entered. Artificial intelligence has accelerated. Economic and political uncertainty have increased. And many assumptions we once took for granted are now being reconsidered. So the question is not whether the world will change. It will. The real question is how you will lead through that change.

Over the past year, I’ve spent time listening to students, faculty, alumni, and staff, trying to understand what makes the GSB so distinctive. I’ve come to a simple conclusion. Great ideas, and great leaders, are not formed all at once. They are built over time, piece by piece, like a mosaic.

If you think about your experience here, you’ve seen how that mosaic comes together. One piece from a classroom discussion. Another from a classmate’s experience. A moment of disagreement that forces you to rethink your assumptions. A conversation that changes how you see a problem.

Individually, these moments may seem small. But over time, they accumulate. They shape how you think, how you decide, and ultimately how you lead. You have not simply accumulated knowledge. You have helped shape one another.

That process rests on two values that define the GSB: excellence and community.

Let me start with excellence. At the GSB, excellence has never meant having the right answer. It means engaging seriously with difficult problems. It means applying rigor to both testing ideas and challenging assumptions that others take for granted. But it also means relevance, or the ability to derive insight and translate it into action.

Rigor coupled with relevance allows you to move from analysis to decision and to operate not only at a theoretical level, but in the real world. That combination — rigor and relevance — is what you have been trained to do. They matter because the world you are entering does not offer clean or predictable problems. It offers complexity and it requires judgment.

But excellence alone is not enough because the most important work you will do will involve other people. Which brings me to the second GSB value: community.

One of the defining features of the GSB is the people. It is not just our accomplishments that matter. It is how we show up for one another. We learn from each other. We challenge each other. And we support each other. In doing so, we build something much more profound than a network. We build community.

The community you have built here does not end today. The relationships you’ve formed will continue to shape your decisions, your opportunities, and your lives for decades to come. This community will support you in moments of success, and, just as importantly, in moments of uncertainty and challenge.

But here is the important part: you are not just beneficiaries of this community. You are now its stewards. What you have experienced here exists because others invested in it before you. They contributed their time, energy, mentorship, and resources to sustain and strengthen the GSB. They added their pieces to the mosaic.

And now it is your turn to do the same. That is, to show up for one another and support those who come after you. Leadership is not only about building something new. It is also about sustaining and strengthening what is worth building on.

This is why excellence and community must go together. Excellence without community can become isolating. Community without excellence can become complacent. But when you combine them, you create environments where people do their very best work.

So what does this mean for you, the GSB Class of 2026? You will make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. You will face problems that do not have clear answers. You will encounter situations where the data are incomplete and the stakes are high. In those moments, your task will not be to predict the future perfectly. It will be to navigate uncertainty with judgment, humility, and courage.

You will draw on what you’ve built here: your ability to think rigorously, to consider multiple perspectives, to make decisions with incomplete information. But just as importantly, you will rely on others — on the people you work with and on the communities you create.

So as you think about what comes next, let me leave you with a few simple reminders: pursue excellence not as status, but as a standard for how you approach your work. Build community because the quality of what you create will depend on the people around you, and because you now carry a responsibility to sustain this community for those who will follow you. And remember that leadership is not defined only by what you achieve, but by what others are able to achieve because of you.

So let me close with this. The first century of the GSB was built by individuals who stepped into uncertainty with purpose, and as a result, created, led, and sustained something much larger than themselves. They built the mosaic you inherit today. Now you will add to it. Your path may not be linear. The future may not feel certain. But you leave here with the tools, the judgment, and the community to navigate what lies ahead.

Congratulations, Class of 2026. We are proud of what you have accomplished. And we are excited to see what you will build next, and the work you will do to sustain it. You will always be part of the GSB community.

Thank you.