Graduation Address

Thank you, Mr. Chancellor, Madam President, distinguished guests, proud families and, most importantly, the graduates of the University of New Brunswick. 

You made it.

Which means the group projects are over, the exams are behind you – and for the first time in years, your late-night Tim Hortons runs are by choice, not necessity.

Someone recently told me that a good graduation speech is like a good business plan: it needs a strong start, a clear point, and a solid ending. But most importantly, it needs flexibility – because no matter how well you plan, something will go off course.

My life certainly did.

When I first arrived at UNB, I was a science major studying chemistry. Partly because I loved science … and partly because my parents REALLY wanted me to be a doctor. 

Then came one lab that changed everything. My assignment was to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid – aspirin. I remember standing there, carefully measuring compounds, hoping I wouldn’t mess it up … and realizing I was more stressed about ruining the experiment than I was excited about discovering anything.  I wasn’t measuring powder; I was measuring the distance between who I was becoming and who everyone expected me to be.

It is a strange, unsettling moment – when you’re doing everything “right,” yet it still feels completely wrong. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t want to spend my career in a lab.  I didn’t see myself making the compounds. I saw myself building the organizations that would ultimately bring them to the world. That wasn’t failure. That was clarity. 

So I changed direction. I traded lab coats for business suits and I soon realized that my business education at UNB was simply a new kind of chemistry. 

Leadership is its own science. It’s about understanding catalysts – how one person’s idea can spark a reaction in a thousand others. It’s about finding the right formula for a culture where people can thrive. Changing course isn’t quitting – it’s adapting.

Life, it turns out, has a sense of humour. My first job after graduation was with Bayer – the very company that made aspirin famous. Apparently, you can leave the chemistry lab but the chemistry of your life has a way of finding you. Because here at UNB, you didn’t just learn what to think – you learned how to think.

You learned it while walking across campus in the middle of February when it’s somehow both icy and uphill in every direction. You learned that resilience isn’t theoretical – it’s practical. 

As you leave today, the world will try to define you quickly by your job title, your salary, or your LinkedIn profile. Don’t rush to accept the label.

But here is the truth: the world will often pay you a lot of money to be someone else. It will often rewards you for becoming who IT wants you to be. It will try to buy your authenticity … do not sell.

There is always a quiet danger in success. If you are not careful, you can spend years climbing a ladder… only to realize it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Some of you know exactly what’s next. Some of you have no idea. Both are completely fine. Careers are rarely straight lines; they are built through decisions, detours, and moments that change you.

And one more thing …success is never a solo act. The best things in business, and in life, are built by teams. And if any of you do not want to take my word for it, I am sure my Hiroko, who is here today, will happily convince you otherwise.

Seek out people who don’t just admire you, but those who will challenge you and make you better. So as you leave UNB, take this with you: stay curious, stay flexible and when life pushes you in a direction you didn’t expect, don’t resist it too quickly.

As the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote: “Life can only be UNDERSTOOD backwards; but it must be LIVED forwards.”

Because one day, you may discover that the thing that looked like uncertainty…was actually the beginning of your purpose.

Forty years ago, I walked out of a chemistry lab because I didn’t want to make the medicine. Today, I realize my job was never to make the aspirin – it was to help building the organizations that bring those medicines to the world.

Congratulations, Class of 2026!

Now go out there, be the catalyst, start a reaction and build something meaningful.

THE WORLD IS READY FOR YOU.

Thank you.