卡莉·费奥利娜在马里兰大学的演讲.pdfVIP

Commencement Ceremony May 22, 2006 Transcript of Keynote Speech by Carly Fiorina, MBA ’80, Former CEO and Chairman of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina: Thank you and good afternoon. It is a great honor for me to return to the campus here and to be among the very first to congratulate all of you on this wonderful afternoon. Congratulations. And allow me as well to lead hopefully not the last round of applause for all of the families and friends and loved ones who are here and who are such a big part of your success here today. As the dean mentioned, I sat where you are - well, actually not exactly where you are. This building was not here and I must tell you the campus looks a lot more impressive today than when I was here, but I did sit figuratively where you are in May of 1980. I must tell you that I almost did not make it graduation because I almost did not make it here at all. Prior to coming here to the Robert H. Smith School, I had studied Medieval History and Philosophy. I had gone to law school and dropped out. I had gone to Italy to teach English and my first introduction to business was as a secretary. I typed and I filed because I had to earn enough money to pay my rent. I applied to a single business school, based on that very limited business experience, and that school was the Robert H. Smith School. At the time, Dr. Ed Locke was the chairman of the admissions committee. I had to speak to Ed because when I applied to the Robert H. Smith School I was rejected. And so I called Ed Locke and I drove him to distraction. Ultimately, he decided that I should in fact come here to Maryland, and that he should change the decision of the committee, and so I entered the MBA program. 1 My professors were great and like so many here, Dr. Rudy Lamone took a chance on me and treated me like a peer. He asked me into his office one day a