Although I don’t frequently step into the ring with my red suit and top hat anymore, I’m finding myself behind a podium more and more. In the past year I’ve been invited to play host to many events and ceremonies, including the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Living Landmarks Gala, which I’ve written about before.
This past weekend I was honored to introduce Dean Glenn Hubbard for his “State of the School” address at the Columbia Business School reunion weekend. I’ve known Glenn for many years, and I’m very pleased to be able to call him a customer. Yes, every year he brings his family to enjoy the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center.
Dean Glenn Hubbard and Senior Associate Dean Lisa Yeh sitting in the auditorium during my introduction
Columbia has meant a great deal to me professionally and personally. Eleven years ago, my daughter, Katherine Binder, was a student at Barnard College, which is across the street from Columbia Business School. She called me one day and said, “Daddy, Daddy, you should go over to the Business School. There’s a big picture of you on the wall.” So I went, and there, in the hall outside the dean’s office, was a series of print ads that highlighted the individuality of Columbia MBAs. This was one of the ads:
I am a proud member of the Columbia Business School graduating class of 1966. Quite significantly, my education at Columbia had a profound impact on the development of the Big Apple Circus, which, from the beginning, was a social enterprise company. After all, just as important to the Big Apple Circus’s performance of an annual season is the mission to serve the communities in which we perform, which we do with five award-winning community programs. The largest of these programs is our Clown Care Unit, which sends specially trained professional performers—clowns, comedians, musicians, and magicians—to the bedsides of acutely and chronically ill children in fifteen pediatric hospitals nationwide, five of them in New York City.
So of course I was honored to have been asked to introduce the dean for his State of the School address. And I was happy to speak to a room full of sharp-minded individuals about my own business background with the Big Apple Circus. I never tire of pitching the commercial: we’re always looking for bright, young, passionate board members, and we’re always looking for MBA candidates who want very exciting internships.
My wonderful education (Dartmouth, Columbia)and the world of circus has given me the opportunity to have a life full of pleasure and adventure. I’m very grateful.
Reunion photos courtesy of Beth Brown, the Director of Alumni Relations, External Relations, and Development at Columbia Business School.