2024 Commencement Speaker

Stephen K. Klasko, M.D., M.B.A.

FDU is excited to welcome as our Commencement speaker Stephen K. Klasko, M.D., M.B.A., a transformative leader, and an advocate for revolution in health care and higher education. Dr. Klasko, who through his career has been named the #2 most influential individual by Modern Healthcare, and the #21 most creative person in business by Fast Company, has been an obstetrician, a CEO, a dean and a university president. He is now a widely sought after speaker and consultant, helping to reconstruct health care systems by bridging traditional academic centers with entrepreneurs and innovators.

He currently serves as executive-in-residence at General Catalyst (a leading investor in digital healthcare) and chief medical officer of Abundant Venture Partners. In 2020, he was named a distinguished fellow of the World Economic Forum. In 2022, President Biden appointed him to the National Board of Education Science.

A lifelong DJ, his most recent book is titled Feeling Alright: How the Message in the Music Can Make Healthcare Healthier. As president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health from 2013 to 2021, he led one of the nation’s fastest growing academic health institutions based on his vision of re-imagining health care and higher education. Under his leadership, Jefferson expanded from three hospitals to 18 and from a health sciences university to a multi-campus professional university through a merger between a leading design and architecture university with a 200-year-old health science university.

Working at the intersection of health care and education has led him to some profound conclusions about where these industries are headed as well as other implications for all of society and indeed our future. During the ceremony, Dr. Klasko will be conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree and hooded in Fairleigh Dickinson’s burgundy and blue colors.