Page 7 - 2023 Undergraduate Commencement

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Stéphane Bancel
MS ’95, Chemical Engineering
Founding Chief Executive Officer, Moderna
Stéphane Bancel has served as Moderna’s chief executive officer since October 2011 and as a member of Moderna’s board of directors since March 2011. Before joining the company, Mr. Bancel served for five years as chief executive officer of the French diagnostics company bioMérieux SA. From July 2000 to March 2006, he served in various roles at Eli Lilly and Company, including as managing director, Belgium and as executive director, global manufacturing strategy and supply chain. Prior to Lilly, Mr. Bancel served as Asia-Pacific sales and marketing director for bioMérieux. Mr. Bancel currently serves on the board of directors of Indigo. He is currently a venture partner at Flagship Pioneering. Mr. Bancel holds a master of engineering degree from École Centrale Paris (ECP), a master of science in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota, and a master of business administration from Harvard Business School.
ALUMNI SPEAKER
Emilia Ndely-Ogundipe
BA ’11, Economics
White House Presidential Innovation Fellow
Emilia Ndely-Ogundipe is currently in her second year as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, where she is detailed to the United States Department of Labor engaging in special projects for the secretary’s office. Prior to her role at the federal government, Emilia was a product lead within the Office of Innovation for the State of New Jersey where she helped millions of residents find vaccines by creating the nation’s second state-sponsored vaccine appointment finder. Emilia started her career as a management consultant at Ernst and Young (EY) helping dozens of healthcare institutions across the country transform their digital products.
Emilia was a dual degree student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill earning her master of business administration and master of healthcare administration in 2015. She is a 2011
graduate of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities earning her bachelor of arts in economics and double minoring in sociology and management. During her time at the U she served on the Black Student Union board, Boynton’s Student Health Advisory Council, and was president of Black Motivated Women. She continued to support the Gopher community after graduating by founding the University of Minnesota Black Alumni Network (UMNBAN) in 2015 and serving as UMNBAN’s president for its first five years. She then started serving on the UMN Alumni Network board of directors in 2018 as the student and recent alumni director and has served in an executive capacity for the board in 2022 as secretary.
Emilia is a first-generation American, with parents hailing from Cameroon, West Africa and a second-generation Gopher. Her parents’ commitment to education, service, and community has inspired her to be a lifelong learner who is passionate about elevating voices of marginalized folks through inclusive product design. As a lifetime Alumni Association member Emilia continues to hold these values dear by showing up, investing, and giving back to her fellow Gophers.
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