Interim Dean’s Remarks to the Graduating Class of 2025

The Future is Yours to Model

Graduates, faculty and staff, honored guests, families and friends – welcome. Welcome to the 2025 Graduation Ceremony of Stanford Graduate School of Business!

I’d like to recognize some of the people here today.

The GSB faculty and staff have played a pivotal role in the experience of our students. May I invite our faculty and staff to please stand, so we can express our appreciation?

We are also joined by families and friends — the people who have offered support, perspective, and, throughout it all…love. Let’s take a moment to look to them and cheer for the role they’ve played in this journey.

A Century of Pioneers

This special year marks the 100th anniversary of Stanford Graduate School of Business.

It’s been a wonderful opportunity to commemorate the school’s evolution — the academic experience, faculty research, and impact of our alumni.

Today, you are joining a distinguished group. We have many famous alums, including two joining us as Commencement speakers today. But I’d like to share a few stories of early graduates you may not have heard of.

The first MBA class, of 1927, had just two students: Charles Overfelt and Melvin Sanguinetti. I guess that made choosing study groups easy!

Following graduation, Charles opened a prominent general store in California’s Central Valley, and Melvin led his family’s farming business.

Elizabeth Wolz Breid, Class of 1931, was appointed to lead the newly established GSB Library, and later finished her career at the consulting firm Arthur Andersen.

Ping Kei Leung, Elizabeth’s classmate, came to the GSB directly from Hong Kong in 1929. After earning a PhD in economics from USC, he became an economist at the NY Fed, and later launched a second career running a popular restaurant in Maryland.

And Ben Eastman, MBA 1935, was an Olympic 400-meter silver medalist who set six world records while at Stanford, including one that stood for over 40 years. After leaving Stanford, he developed a nationally recognized fruit orchard in Colorado, where he also served as Agriculture Commissioner.

From the beginning, the GSB has attracted a certain kind of individual: someone drawn to the western frontier of the U.S., to California, to the possibility of becoming “pioneers” — creating new knowledge, new industries, new business models, and setting new records.

The GSB has had many pioneers.

From shoes to software, private equity to venture capital, public service to private philanthropy, our students have always come from different backgrounds and life circumstances, and forged their unique paths.

Their success has been driven by a shared set of core attributes – including an incredible work ethic, resilience, leadership, and the ability to navigate change and uncertainty.

Think about the uncertainty and adversity our earlier alumni faced: the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, World War II, the Cold War, the struggle for civil rights.

Yet, these were also times of innovation and opportunity.

Over the last century, the school has awarded degrees to some 40,000 students, continuously evolving to prepare future leaders for the changing circumstances of the times.

Every class of Stanford Graduate School of Business is defined by both a unique set of challenges and opportunities. Let’s talk about the Class of 2025.

Class of 2025

In 2022, as the world emerged from the global pandemic, you were already driving change — founding companies, working in government or nonprofits, leading large teams… in some cases, all of the above.

And yet, you made a profound decision — and took a risk — to put your careers on hold, pursue an MBA, and change the course of your life. That took courage. And — let’s be honest — maybe in part a genuine desire to escape Zoom and be around real people again!

You came together here in 2023 from around the globe — from 55 countries. You brought experience from government, technology, education, investment management, and more.

You came with a commitment to learn from and with each other. To challenge yourselves, and step into the zone of discomfort where real growth happens.

Indeed, the world had changed post-pandemic, and it has continued to change in profound ways over the past two years.

You’re entering a world with a different set of issues at the forefront than when you started. Artificial intelligence has accelerated. Political shifts — both at home and abroad — have introduced new uncertainty.

Fundamental questions we once took for granted are now back on the table…with the potential to reshape the global economy. Questions about the role of higher education, of scientific inquiry…even the value of an MBA.

How will you navigate these questions? What will you do going forward? Who will you become?

Fan of Outcomes

I’ve had the honor of serving as interim dean for the last year, but I’ve been a finance professor for much longer. I know many of you thought that you’d escaped my Financial Modeling class, but this is my last chance to share a few key concepts from that course.

The first lesson from finance is that it doesn’t matter what brought us here. Value is about what we will do and the decisions we will make, going forward.

In my class, we develop frameworks and models to make decisions. What’s hard about making decisions? Uncertainty. That is why we need to think in terms of what’s called a fan of outcomes.

A fan of outcomes is a conceptual representation of the range of future possibilities, for stock prices, economic growth, inflation, or investment returns.

When you build a financial model, you input a set of assumptions. The only thing you know for sure is…they’re wrong!

The future will surprise you. And it’s that uncertainty that creates the fan of possible outcomes.

In real decisions, there is almost never a “right answer.” There’s only understanding — and getting comfortable with — the range of possibilities.

Life, like finance, rarely gives you a single forecast. It gives you a distribution — a fan of outcomes. Your job is to navigate that fan, not by predicting the future, but by preparing for it.

And while you can’t control the outcome, there are ways you can influence it — ways you can navigate the uncertainty.

Your confidence should come from the skills you’ve gained. The frameworks you’ve learned. The insights you’ve gathered from your peers. These will help you react as new information arrives. And that ability — to reoptimize, to pivot — is what will amplify the value you create.

Over the last two years, you’ve honed your skills. You’ve built your foundation. You’ve learned how to model alternative scenarios.

There are many inputs and assumptions you will need to build into the model of your life and career. Some you can’t control – the pace of AI, tariffs, political change. Others are entirely yours – your values, your character, your integrity.

In other words: the future is yours to model.

Our early graduates, like Charles Overfelt and Elizabeth Wolz Breid, may not have used a fan of outcomes to chart their future, but they were the first of many to take what they learned here and lead in an uncertain and rapidly changing world.

What is your class going to do in the future? Who will start companies? Who will be CEOs? Who will own a fruit orchard or a restaurant? Who will be an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, or even a prime minister?

What will you choose to build? What will your story be?

Your fan of outcomes is wide. But each of you has the ability – and the responsibility – to lead others and to shape a future that reflects not just your ambition, but your values.

You may not know exactly where the model will lead – but remember: you’re the one building it.

It took courage to begin this journey. Let that same courage guide you as you shape what comes next.

Just like those first pioneers a century ago, you’re stepping into an uncertain world — not with all the answers, but with boldness, purpose, and the courage to lead.

Congratulations, GSB Class of 2025. We’re so proud of all you’ve accomplished – and all you will go on to do.

And we’re honored and grateful that you’ll always be part of the GSB community.