Commencement Speaker Reminds Graduates To 'Pay Attention To Possibilities'
James Stengel, global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, was the commencement speaker this year for Penn State's Smeal College of Business graduation ceremony on May 14. The following are excerpts from his remarks:
Commencement Speaker Reminds Graduates To 'Pay Attention To Possibilities'
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 17, 2006)—James Stengel, global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, was the commencement speaker this year for Penn State's Smeal College of Business graduation ceremony on May 14. The following are excerpts from his remarks:
"Brief conversations and casual encounters have the potential to forever change the way we look at the world and the choices we make in life. To be clear: I believe in fundamentals. I believe in being prepared. You can't succeed in business, or anything, without a vision and a plan. But there are two things I believe in just as much. One is serendipity—letting life take you places that aren't on your list of things to do. The other is people. Honest relationships are the best investment you will ever make."
"As you head off to Wall Street or Silicon Valley, or if you decide to get an MBA, or become a poet or professor or chef, stay in touch with what happens along the edges. Pay attention to possibilities, things you didn’t plan, people who can't do a single thing for your career. These are often the things and people who will change your life."
"In the end, building a business is about building a culture of commitment, of passion, of winning. And no matter what goals or strategies or measures you devise, you gain more by taking your nose out of the spreadsheet and connecting with people."
"Being open to possibility is really a matter of following your heart, your intuition, your gut. It's about knowing who you are and what you feel inside. But the thing is, even when you know what's inside, you have to trust yourself before you can go there. And for most of us, that takes years. It doesn't happen right away. My advice: trust yourself. Make yourself go there. Your core beliefs will rarely, if ever, let you down."
Stengel, a 1983 graduate of the Smeal MBA program, has been with Procter & Gamble since 1983, working on its Food and Beauty Care brands, and as general manager of Procter & Gamble in Europe and vice president for global baby care before becoming global marketing officer in 2001.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
