Graduate Commencement 2026

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.

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.