Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-India Business Council, to give 2015 commencement address

Mukesh Aghi, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, will be the featured speaker at Claremont Graduate University’s 88th annual commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 16, 2015.

The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. at Mudd Quadrangle located at the southeast corner of Tenth Street and Dartmouth Avenue.

A Claremont Graduate University alumnus (PhD International Relations ’85) Aghi’s career includes positions leading the international growth and operations of prestigious American and Indian technology companies.

Prior to serving as president of the U.S.-India Business Council Aghi was chief executive and board member at L&T Infotech. Earlier he served at Steria Inc. – India as CEO Asia-Pacific and Global Executive Sales Director. At Steria he was responsible for the top 50 global accounts with revenues exceeding $1.5 billion and he was instrumental in a merger with Xansa creating a multi-billion dollar technology services business.

In his previous roles Aghi has associated with Universitas 21 Global the world’s largest consortium of research-led universities and a global leader in providing post-graduate online education; IBM Corporation where he was president of IBM India; Ariba Inc.; and JD Edwards & Co.

His expertise spans across management of global consumer and corporate strategies; building and maintaining talents across geographies; profitable turnaround of operations through effective business strategies; management of global joint ventures and alliances; and building strong leadership teams.

In addition to his PhD from CGU Aghi holds an advanced management diploma from Harvard Business School an MBA in international marketing from Andrews University Michigan and a BA in business administration from the Middle East College Beirut Lebanon.

CGU’s commencement ceremony will feature the conferral of degrees the awarding of honorary degrees greetings by university officials and the commencement address. Tickets are not required. Receptions will be held afterward for individual schools and programs.

On May 15 CGU will host a commencement forum centered on the topic of “Big Data Human Endeavors.” Forum panelists include Aghi; Patrick Ball executive director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group; Jean-Baptiste Michel leading data scientist and founder of Quantified Labs; Fernanda Viéga co-leader of Google’s “Big Picture” data visualization group in Cambridge Massachusetts; and Jeff Jonas IBM Fellow and chief scientist of context computing.

The forum will begin at 4:30 pm in Albrecht Auditorium 925 N. Dartmouth Ave. RSVP at http://alumnicommunity.cgu.edu/2015forum“