Wharton announces speakers for 2024 Commencement ceremonies

The Wharton School announced its 2024 Commencement Speakers for its MBA, MBA Program for Executives, and undergraduate ceremonies.

1999 Wharton graduate Vivek Bantwal and head of Global Financing Group at Goldman Sachs will speak at the undergraduate ceremony, while 1991 Wharton graduate and T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert will speak at the MBA graduation ceremony. Both events will occur on May 19.

Bantwal, a Philadelphia native, has worked in analytics and structured finance since graduating. After joining Goldman Sachs in 1999, he became head of structured finance in the Americas, co-head of the Americas Credit Finance Group, and took his current position in 2019. Bantwal was captain of the analyst recruiting team during his time at Penn. He currently serves as a board member for the Undergraduate Executive Board of the Wharton School.

Sievert began working with T-Mobile in 2012. He now leads the Un-carrier team, which focuses on personalization and connection to the customer. In 2020, he helped close a merger with Sprint to become a more expansive network and commit to building a 5G network.

Roger Ferguson — the former CEO and president of the financial services organization TIAA — will kick off the first of the MBA Program for Executives ceremonies in San Francisco on May 11. This is the second year that a TIAA executive has spoken at a Wharton commencement ceremony. In 2023, TIAA President and CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett spoke at the MBA ceremony. 

Ferguson was head of financial services for Swiss Re and chairman of Swiss Re America Holding Corporation, later becoming vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System. Ferguson currently is a Steven A. Tananbaum Distinguished Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a board member for the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents.

Mohamed El-Erian — the current president of Queens’ College, Cambridge University in England — will deliver the keynote address for the MBA Program for Executives.

El-Erian is a New York Times bestseller of the books “When Markets Collide” and "The Only Game in Town.” His most recent co-authored book “Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix our Fractured World” was released last fall. El-Erian served as the chair of former President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council from 2012 to 2017 and is currently a Senior Global Fellow at the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies, as well as the Rene M. Kern Practice Professor at Wharton.

“I am honored and thrilled to be one of the keynote speakers for this year's graduation ceremonies at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania," El-Erian wrote in an X post on Tuesday.