Speakers at SOM

One of the things I love about SOM is the constant flow of really interesting people who come to school to speak to students, participate in classes and conferences, and generally contribute to the ongoing discourse here on campus. These past few weeks especially, it seems as though there has been a lot of activity at SOM in terms of visitors and speakers.Starting with the Education Leadership Conference, which took place a few Fridays ago and featured Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, we've had a number of great guests here at SOM. Following the Education Conference (which also featured Alberto Carvalho of the Miami-Dade County Public School system and Dacia Toll of Achievement First, among many others), John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, was here to give a speech, have lunch with students, and participate in classes. He was followed by Mark Tercek, CEO of the Nature Conservancy, and Linda Rottenberg of Endeavor, both of whom were guests of CBEY (the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale). Then, last week, Laurence Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, was here to speak, followed by our Believers in Business Conference, which featured Ed Meese, former US Attorney General, and Dennis Bakke, co-founder and CEO of Imagine Schools, among others. And tomorrow, Iceland's new Minister of Business Affairs will be here at SOM for a roundtable discussion and talk on the Icelandic economy and financial crisis. I'm sure there will be many others coming to campus in the near future as well. There always seems to be someone interesting coming to campus to share their perspectives and insights.