Given Hampden-Sydney’s commitment to preparing young men not just for successful careers, but also rewarding, generous lives, it is fitting that this year’s Commencement speaker has harnessed his professional success into a mission of giving back.
The College is thrilled to welcome philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms, to speak at Commencement on May 11, 2019.
In addition to his role at Carlyle, which has grown into a firm managing $216 billion from 31 offices around the world since its founding in 1987, Mr. Rubenstein is chairman of the boards of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations; a trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; a fellow of the Harvard Corporation; and president of the Economic Club of Washington. Other board memberships include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Business Council, and Harvard Global Advisory Council, where he serves as chairman.
Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge and has received numerous philanthropic awards, including the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award. He also hosts The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.
A leader in the area of patriotic philanthropy, Mr. Rubenstein has made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, the Kennedy Center, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the African-American History and Culture Museum, among other historic sites. He has also provided to the U.S. government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, and the first map of the United States.
A 1970 graduate of Duke University and a 1973 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Mr. Rubenstein served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments before becoming the deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Carter Administration. He also practiced law in both New York City and Washington, D.C.
The Hampden-Sydney community is also excited to welcome the Honorable Dr. John Hillen, a former College trustee, to speak at Baccalaureate on May 10. Dr. Hillen is an award-winning CEO and leadership expert, former assistant secretary of state, public intellectual, decorated combat veteran, board chairman of several companies, and a popular business school professor at George Mason University.
Currently the CEO of Everwatch Solutions, a mid-sized defense technology firm in Northern Virginia, Dr. Hillen served for eight years as a trustee of Hampden-Sydney and received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion from the College in 2016. His most recent book, What Happens Now? Reinvent Yourself as a Leader Before Your Business Outruns You, was recognized as one of the top business books of 2018.