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Remarks prepared for delivery

Hello, George Mason! Good morning.��

Thank you, Greg [Washington] and Rector [Cully] Stimson. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you on this very special day.��

Board of Visitors, deans, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, family, friends, and graduates: It’s an honor to be here.��

Graduates, I might not be the first to say it. But let me be the loudest to say it. Congratulations Class of 2025!

Look at where you are today and think of how far you’ve come. You’ve made it! But I trust you realize you didn’t get here all by yourself. Look out into the stands and to your left and right—- and find the parents, relatives, friends, and classmates who helped get you to this point. I invite you to give them a big round of applause for the roles they played and the help they gave you on your journey here.

Class of 2025! Thinking about what I should share with you today, I kept coming back to something. I know the unofficial rule book of commencement addresses says to avoid using clichés, but I want to discuss and dissect this one. It’s said you should always look before you leap. But that advice is woefully inadequate. It does not specify where to look. Or when to look. Or even what to you should look at.��

So let me fill in the picture for you.

I suggest looking in three directions.

First, look around you.

Second, look far ahead.

And third, look inside.��

Let me take you through each of these.��

First, looking around—seeing what’s next to us, not what’s just before us— gives us the ability to see adjacencies, expands our thinking, and opens all kinds of new possibilities.��

You’re graduating so you’re thinking about what’s way down the road. But if you don’t look at what’s at hand right now, you may miss something.

Apply this approach when you leave today. Most people think of their careers as a ladder. They see the goal as climbing the ladder with promotions or leaving one job to take a bigger one elsewhere.��

The truth is, moving up is not the only direction. It’s not even always the best direction. Sometimes it’s the lateral move.

Three years ago, Imade a lateral move. I had been working for a few years as president of our Market Intelligence division. I had a great team. The job was rewarding. I loved it. Then, our former CEO Doug Peterson asked me to serve as president of our credit rating agency.

It wasn’t a promotion. It wasn’t a move up. And when I was a kid, let me assure you I never said, ‘When I grow up, I want to be the president of a Credit Ratings Agency,” but I took it anyway, because it was a great opportunity.��

The move exposed me to different customers, a whole new set of colleagues, and the opportunity to meet regulators and policy makers all around the globe—all people that were important when I did move up.��

Looking back now, I realize leading two divisions instead of one better prepared me for becoming CEO.

The lesson is: Don’t collect promotions. Collect experiences. That’s going to make you smarter, better prepared for what comes next, and it’ll give you a more reliable gut sense of what you ought to do when the answer isn’t clear.

Because I collected experiences and took lateral moves, there are not many challenges I see these days that I haven’t navigated in some way before, although… if someone can explain whether rubbing George Mason’s toe over in Wilkins Plaza really does bring you good luck, I’d love to hear it!

The bottom line is: If something’s interesting, go for it. Don’t worry as much about the pay or the prestige. If it captures your attention, your passion, it’s going to get you where you want to go faster.��

Vision not only opens you up to lateral moves; it also gives you a window into the benefits of taking on new assignments.��

Renowned American virologist, Dr. Jonas Salk said, “The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.”��

That’ll work for you, too, and unlike Dr. Salk, you don’t have to cure a disease to prove it’s true.

The added work may not come with extra pay immediately, but I promise the way it expands your own vision can be golden.��

During my 15 years at S&P Global, I’ve taken on several special assignments that were more than my day job.��

In 2015 and in 2020, my boss asked me to lead the due diligence on the two largest acquisitions in our company’s history. This was on top of my normal responsibilities. I looked at these as opportunities for professional growth and development, to meet new people outside my network, and to develop what I like to call an enterprise mindset—not being siloed in your thinking but rather having an attitude of delivering value across the entire organization.��

These projects required us to merge two separate companies, two distinct cultures, and two different leadership teams—and they taught me another valuable lesson. Mergers and acquisitions can be stressful events. Opinions can differ about strategy, synergies, and value. Assuming the person on the other side of the table has good intentions can help you lower the temperature and work toward your shared goals.��

So that’s what you can learn looking laterally.

With that established, let me tell you my second point, the value of a long-term view.

Having a long-term view allowed me to envision my future far across an ocean.

I left Ireland in 2000 to come to the U.S. I was so proud when I became a U.S. citizen. When I was sitting where you are, I might not have known that this was exactly where I would wind up—but I was thinking about the life I wanted to shape, and the type of work I wanted to do.

In the U.S., I saw opportunities to work on exciting consulting projects for companies who are global leaders in their field.��

I am a long-term thinker and a lifelong learner, and I wanted to be at the heart of innovation, technology, and value creation across many industries.��

And I’m proud that I’ve contributed to the American economy. In the six years since I joined the S&P Global executive team, our company has returned nearly $28��billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. That money has gone into the 401(k) accounts of workers saving for retirement. And we have supported tens of thousands of companies to help them grow their businesses, invest in new opportunities, and support employees and their families.��

For me, this is very meaningful—a very real part of the American Dream.

By the way, speaking of long-term vision, if you don’t have a job lined up yet, don’t let it scare you. Start somewhere. Start anywhere. Figure out your long-term goal—and give yourself permission to change it if your experience leads you to do so. Taking a long-term view frees up your thinking to take lateral moves and to understand they are learning experiences, and it gives you permission to really start anywhere.

When I was a teenager, I started working for my father’s restaurant. It wasn’t glamorous and it wasn’t what I had in mind over the long term, but it was a great place to start. I learned about product quality, service excellence, and building customer loyalty. Those values still drive me today.

My long-term view was a little different back then. Things changed for me. They’ll change for you, too.

Your career is going to span decades. When you come to a crossroads, stop and ask yourself:�� Where do I want to be in five-to-10 years and what can I do over the next two-to-three years to help me get there? This can help you decide which way to go.

The third important skill I encourage you to hone is introspection.

Be honest with yourself. As you look within, also ask someone else for honest feedback—and tell them you want a candid assessment, not just encouragement.��

When you leave here today, go find others who can help you. Look for mentors—people who are good at what they do and who enjoy what they’re doing. They can be relatives, professors, professionals, and entrepreneurs. Then… just ask: Will you be a mentor for me? Can I come to you for advice?

Don’t be afraid to ask just like that. Most of them will be flattered. It’s a pretty high honor to be asked to help figure out somebody’s life.��

And then make this relationship mutually beneficial. What I mean is that the relationship should not be one-way learning, from mentor to mentee.��

You might be surprised that mentors are going to learn from you, too. You’re smart, have incredible talents, interesting experiences, and a George Mason education to boot! …. which means you have something valuable to contribute. You may be proficient in a topic your mentor knows very little about. The people you’re seeking out will benefit from your��perspective as well as you benefiting from theirs.

I’ll let you in on a secret, too. You never outgrow needing a mentor. Even CEOs have mentors.

Taking time to reflect, acquiring new perspectives, and thinking about self-improvement are critical life skills.

On this day 25 years ago, Peter Drucker—a management expert, a very good one—said something that at the time was only beginning to be clear. He said that knowledge is our main resource, and knowledge workers are the main part of the workforce.

But now, some people believe that GenAI is going to upend that. I beg to differ.��

The truth is the set of interests, perspectives, and passions that define your mental landscape creates an intellectual curiosity that is yours alone.

This quality is unique to you, like a fingerprint. It cannot be duplicated, cannot be imitated, and cannot be captured by silicon and software.��

Critical thinking matters. Look within. No one else will have exactly the perspective you have—not now and not ever.

One of the keys to success, now and in the future, is to never stop learning. People need to learn skills of all kinds. Part of self-reflection is��being intellectually curious.��

In practice, that means learning everything you can about topics you’re passionate about or topics that intrigue you. For me—right now—it’s GenAI. At S&P Global, GenAI is a great enabler. It helps us to be more productive and it enhances our products and services. I’m constantly learning about it, asking questions about what our partners are doing with it, and how we can use AI to help our customers be better at their jobs.��

The most successful people I know are lifelong learners demonstrating precisely why they’re successful!

Today may be the end of your formal education, but it’s just the start of a process of accumulating the knowledge, capabilities, and relationships that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Over the course of your lifetime, you’ll be inundated with information. Some of it will be trustworthy. Some will be noise. Over time, you’ll learn who to pay attention to and what to take onboard.��

The important thing is to be open-minded about feedback and keen on hearing from a diverse set of voices…and never stop learning.��

In the days and years ahead, you’re going to face difficult challenges and make difficult choices. And when that happens, pause. Spend a little time in the gap between “when the question comes” and your reaction. Take a moment. Remember how to look before you leap.

Look around you.��

Look ahead of you.��

And look within.

That will give you the vision to clearly see the path ahead.��

Congratulations Class of 2025! I wish you much success and I’m so excited to see what you do next.��

Thank you.