Scott Cook Named HBS Class Day Speaker

Harvard Business School has named Scott Cook, co-founder and current chairman of the executive committee of Intuit Inc., as its 2015 Class Day speaker.

Cook co-founded Intuit—a $4.5 billion financial software company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.—after working at Procter & Gamble. Intuit has been ranked in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and “America’s Most Admired Software Companies.”

Mike Murphy, associate director of MBA student and academic services at HBS, wrote in an email that speakers are selected based on their “recognition, accessibility, ability to deliver a motivational speech, and take away relevance.”

Murphy added that the selection process begins by polling students to seek guidance on the “qualities students find compelling in their Class Day keynote,” and then the Dean of HBS communicates with leaders in the business world. According to Murphy, the Student Associate Class Committee members work with the speaker to target opportunities for engagement with the students in the weeks prior to Class Day.

According to the announcement, in 1996 Cook received the Alumni Achievement Award from HBS, which acknowledges “graduates who represent the highest standards of professional excellence and integrity.”

A press release states that a committee of second-year MBA students plan the schedule for Class Day. The event is open to graduating students and their guests, as well as HBS alumni, faculty, and staff.

Class Day, scheduled for May 27, honors students graduating from HBS the day before the official Commencement ceremony.

—Staff writer Ignacio Sabate can be reached at ignacio.sabate@thecrimson.com . Follow him on Twitter @TheIggySabate.