Commencement Speakers and Honorary Degree Recipients

C. Dean Metropoulos’ early career was with GTE International, initially as CFO of Europe, Middle East and Africa and subsequently as the company’s youngest Senior Vice President/CFO of its International Business, including Telecommunications, Home Entertainment, Lighting and Precision Materials. GTE operated in every continent, often in partnership with local governments (telecom) and local businesses, as well as through its own operations.

In these early exciting and global corporate years, Metropoulos became aware of private equity as a new frontier that redefined investing and building and transforming companies. Loving to build and profitably grow companies, Metropoulos started Metropoulos & Co. to participate in this new frontier as a boutique investment firm. His sons, Evan and Daren ’05, joined him from a very early age, and they passionately loved transforming historic and iconic brands that had lost their way by focusing on a lean execution culture, quickly investing and delivering efficiencies, and driving unique innovation and marketing to reconnect the many iconic brands with contemporary consumers.

Metropoulos & Co. is a boutique and highly entrepreneurial private equity firm that has been involved in 80+ acquisitions and several Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACS) in the United States, Canada, and Europe. With their hands-on engagement, the firm has earned some of the best private equity returns on Wall Street.

Dean, and his wife, Marianne, of 48 years, also are very active with philanthropy, including their commitments to the Gates Foundation’s Giving Pledge, the King’s Trust International, MSK’s Epigenetics Cancer Research Center, Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, as well as many others.

Adriana Cisneros is the Chief Executive Officer of Cisneros, a privately held global enterprise with a 96-year legacy spanning media, entertainment, consumer products, real estate, and technology. Under her strategic leadership, Cisneros has expanded and modernized its operations, reinforcing its position as a diversified, innovative global organization.

As CEO, Cisneros oversees Cisneros Media, a premier global entertainment provider that reaches more than 50 million viewers worldwide through its linear platforms and serves 25 million Pay-TV subscribers across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain.

Cisneros also leads Laboratorios FISA, a 70-year leader in Venezuela’s personal care industry. She also founded and grew Cisneros Interactive into one of Latin America’s leading digital advertising networks.

Under Cisneros’s leadership, the company continues to evolve through innovation and disciplined diversification, advancing digital platforms such as RedMas, serving as a first investor in AST SpaceMobile to support global connectivity infrastructure, and expanding its real estate portfolio through Tropicalia, a sustainable luxury development in the Dominican Republic. Together, these initiatives reinforce her legacy of entrepreneurial vision, global scale, and long-term value creation.

Born in Cognac, France, in 1971, Cyril Camus is the fifth-generation owner and president of the world’s leading independent cognac house. Since taking over from his father in 2003, Camus has consolidated the family business’ operations in the U.S., Europe and Russia, while forging a close relationship with China.

In addition to being a producer of cognac, the Camus Group also is the founder of Lambay Irish Whiskey, and one of the leading importers of Western spirits into China. Based in Shanghai, Camus was recognized in 2014 as one the 50 personalities who most influenced the relationship between China and France. In 2017, he was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest distinction.

Camus is a co-founder of Réseau Entreprendre Poitou-Charentes, an association financing and mentoring first-time entrepreneurs in France. He is a trustee of Babson College and chairman of its Global Advisory Board.

Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD is the 14th president of Babson College and a lifelong entrepreneur who has spent his career at the intersection of academia, business, and philanthropy. Under his leadership, Babson College was named the No. 2 best college in the United States by The Wall Street Journal and has retained its decades-long place atop U.S. News & World Report’s undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship rankings.

Spinelli is a long-standing member of the Babson community. He spent 14 years of his career as a member of the College’s faculty, as vice provost for entrepreneurship and global management, and as director of The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship.

In 2007, he became president of Philadelphia University, which later merged with Thomas Jefferson University to form the new Jefferson, where he was named chancellor in July 2017.

Prior to arriving at Babson, Spinelli co-founded Jiffy Lube International and was chairman and CEO of the American Oil Change Corporation.

Spinelli earned his PhD in economics from The Management School at the University of London’s Imperial College London, his MBA from Babson College, and his BA in economics from McDaniel College.

Roger Ward Babson was a highly successful pioneer in the financial investment business. On September 3, 1919, he opened the Babson Institute with an enrollment of 27 students.

In 1921, Babson named George Coleman (1921–1935) as the second president. That same year, Babson was incorporated under the educational laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a not-for-profit institution.

In 1923, Babson acquired farmland in Wellesley Hills, established an endowment fund, and began to build a campus. By the end of that year, Mustard, Bryant, and Lyon (now Lukŝić) halls, and Knight Auditorium were completed. Two years later, the Babson Park Clubhouse and Coleman Hall were finished. To accommodate the rise in student enrollment, the Clubhouse was renamed Park Manor South, and the hotel rooms, originally designed for visiting businessmen, became residence rooms for Babson students.