AOL Co-Founder and Revolution Chairman and CEO Steve Case and Akio Toyoda MBA'82, President, Member of the Board of Directors, Toyota Motor Corporation, Are Babson College Centennial Commencement Speakers

Best known for co-founding one of the most recognized brands, America Online (AOL), internet pioneer Steve Case will address Babson's undergraduate Centennial Class of 2019 as their Commencement speaker on Saturday, May 18, 2019. During the 10 a.m. ceremony on the Wellesley campus, Case will also receive the honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Babson.

Global business leader and Babson alumnus Akio Toyoda MBA'82, president of Toyota Motor Corporation, will address Babson's graduate Class of 2019 as their Centennial Commencement speaker on Saturday, May 18, 2019.  During the 3 p.m. ceremony on the Wellesley campus, Toyoda will also receive the honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Babson.

Steve Case

Chairman and CEO, Revolution LLC
Co-Founder, America Online
Chairman, The Case Foundation

"As we celebrate our historic Centennial Commencement, we are thrilled to welcome entrepreneur, internet pioneer and AOL co-founder Steve Case as our undergraduate speaker," said Babson College President Kerry Healey. "Steve shares Babson's belief that entrepreneurs are everywhere, and has a profound understanding of the power of entrepreneurship to grow economies, solve social problems and transform communities. His visionary leadership inspires our global community and we are so excited to welcome him to Babson." 

Steve Case is one of America's best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs, and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future.

As Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington, D.C. - based investment firm he co-founded in 2005, Steve partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build significant 'built to last' businesses. Revolution invests in and actively helps build companies leveraging technology to disrupt existing markets. This includes both early and mid-stage growth companies through both the Revolution Growth fund, created in 2011, and the Revolution Ventures fund, launched in 2013. Revolution has backed more than 30 companies, including: sweet green, Zipcar, Revolution Foods, DraftKings, Uptake and Framebridge.

In 2014, Steve and Revolution launched the Rise of the Rest, a platform to shine a spotlight on entrepreneurs that are starting and scaling businesses outside of Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Steve frequently tours the country by bus to meet with civic leaders, founders, investors and local corporate executives to champion citywide efforts to jumpstart entrepreneurship. As part of the initiative, Steve announced The Rise of the Rest Seed fund in December 2017.

Steve's entrepreneurial career began in 1985 when he co-founded America Online (AOL). Under Steve's leadership, AOL became the world's largest and most valuable Internet company, driving the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society. AOL was the first Internet company to go public and the best performing stock of the 1990s. At its peak, nearly half of Internet users in the United States used AOL. In 2000, Steve negotiated the largest merger in business history, bringing together AOL and Time Warner in a transaction that gave AOL shareholders a majority stake in the combined company. To facilitate the merger, Steve agreed to step down as CEO when the merger closed. 

Steve's passion for helping entrepreneurs remains his driving force. In 2011, he was the founding chair of the Startup America Partnership— an effort launched at the White House to accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation. Steve also was the founding co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and a member of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, where he chaired the subcommittee on entrepreneurship.   

Steve has been a leading voice in shaping government policy on issues related to entrepreneurship, working across the aisle to advance public policies that expand access to capital and talent. He was instrumental in passing the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, and is active in advocating on behalf of immigration reform and legislation that supports and accelerates the emergence of startup ecosystems in rising cities.  

Steve is also Chairman of the Case Foundation, which he established with his wife Jean in 1997. Together the Cases have invested in hundreds of organizations, initiatives and partnerships with a focus on leveraging the Internet and entrepreneurial approaches to strengthen the social sector. In 2010, Steve and Jean joined The Giving Pledge and publicly reaffirmed their commitment to give away the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Akio Toyoda

"We are thrilled to welcome Akio Toyoda back to campus as our graduate Commencement speaker and to recognize his remarkable leadership and achievements with an honorary Doctor of Laws," said Babson College President Kerry Healey. "Akio is a beloved alumnus and an innovative entrepreneur who has successfully led an international business through generational and industrial change. As we embark on our second century, Akio will inspire and motivate our graduates and our global community of alumni and friends to lead in a new way, and transform lives, businesses, and communities for the better."

Akio Toyoda was born on May 3, 1956. He graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in April 1979, and then from Babson College in the United States, with a master's degree in business administration in 1982. He joined Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in April 1984.

Mr. Toyoda's career has included postings in every phase of automotive operations, including production, marketing and product development, both in Japan and internationally. Outside Japan, he served as an executive vice president and board member at New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), Toyota's production joint venture with General Motors in California, starting in April 1998.

In January 2000, he returned to Japan and was named to TMC's Board of Directors in June. In that capacity, he took on the creation and supervision of gazoo.com, a website that contains dozens of virtual shops for consumer goods and services and also provides information about new and used vehicles. Also during this time, he supervised domestic marketing operations, operations in the Americas, and production management consulting. In June 2001, Mr. Toyoda became the chief officer of the Asia & China Operations Center, and then in June 2002, he assumed the position of managing director.

In June 2003, Mr. Toyoda was made a senior managing director (this title was changed to senior managing officer as of June 2011), and, in January 2005, he became chief officer of both the China Operations Group and the Asia, Oceania & Middle East Operations Group. In June 2005, he became an executive vice president and a representative director, where he was responsible for IT & ITS, quality, product management, purchasing, Japan and overseas sales, and overseas operations. In June 2009, Mr. Toyoda became president of TMC.

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds^®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action^® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.

SOURCE Babson College

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