CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been selected to speak at Harvard University’s 2014 commencement exercises, the university announced Wednesday.
The Massachusetts native and Harvard Business School graduate will be the principal speaker for graduates and their guests at afternoon exercises at the school’s 363rd commencement May 29.
“Mike Bloomberg’s career represents a rare blend of public leadership, private-sector entrepreneurship, and powerful philanthropic engagement,” Harvard President Drew Faust said in a statement. “He has led one of the world’s great cities, built one of the nation’s most influential information services, and generously committed his attention and resources to worthy causes in public health, the environment, civic life, the arts, and - not least of all - education.”
Bloomberg, a member of the business school’s Class of 1966, has remained engaged with the university. He has endowed a professorship and the renovated Baker Library/Bloomberg Center is named in honor of his late father, William Henry Bloomberg.
In addition to founding Bloomberg L.P., the financial services news company that has more than 300,000 subscribers, he also established Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Elected mayor shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bloomberg served three terms.
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