San Francisco, CA and Philadelphia, PA — The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has announced that Laurence M. Baer, President of the 2010 World Series champion San Francisco Giants, will be the featured speaker at the School’s 2011 graduation ceremony for the MBA Program for Executives at Wharton | San Francisco. The ceremony will take place May 8, 2011 at 10 a.m., in the Herbst Theatre of the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center.
“Professional sports bring great value to our economy and local communities, and as President of the reigning World Series champions, Larry Baer is quite literally at the top of his game,” Wharton Dean Thomas S. Robertson said. “His enthusiastic, hands-on leadership of the San Francisco Giants is an example across industry, and we are honored to have him address our West Coast MBA graduates.”
A lifelong San Franciscan, Mr. Baer leads the Giants on both the business and baseball sides. He was instrumental in organizing a new ownership group and negotiating the 1992 purchase that kept the Giants in San Francisco. Mr. Baer has negotiated the club’s major transactions since that time, including the opening of AT&T Park and the awarding of the 2007 All-Star Game by Major League Baseball.
Mr. Baer joined the Giants as the club’s marketing director in 1980. Other than positions with Westinghouse Broadcasting and CBS Inc., as special assistant to the chairman, Laurence Tisch, he has spent his entire career with the Giants organization. In 1996 Mr. Baer was awarded the San Francisco Distinguished Leadership Award, given to individuals who have contributed to their community and provided leadership for a better quality of life. Mr. Baer also serves on the Board of Major League Baseball Enterprises which oversees national television and radio contract negotiations, national sponsorship and licensing programs, and the overall marketing of the sport.
Previous graduation speakers at Wharton | San Francisco have included Art Bilger, Ken Moelis, Jon M. Huntsman and David Pottruck. Wharton established a campus in San Francisco due to the strong belief that business executives would be well served by the option to pursue a robust, full-curriculum Wharton MBA without the need to cross the U.S. Since its founding, the School has graduated more than 600 students from its Wharton MBA Program for Executives in San Francisco, which is preparing to celebrate its tenth anniversary.
Information about the University of Pennsylvania’s 255th Commencement ceremony is available at www.upenn.edu/commencement.
About Wharton | San Francisco and the Wharton School
Wharton MBA Program for Executives in San Francisco was one of the first programs launched at Wharton | San Francisco, the School’s campus in San Francisco. It offers the same MBA degree, rigorous curriculum, top Wharton faculty and high level of students as the traditional MBA program on Wharton’s main campus in Philadelphia. A residential program, students attend classes on alternate weekends and during two week-long sessions in the summer. Because Wharton students live and work together during focused on-site sessions, students have an opportunity to forge close connections with classmates as well as to foster teamwork skills. In addition, the integration of work and study provides a living laboratory for applying knowledge.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania— founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 4,800 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 86,000 graduates.
For more information: www.wharton.upenn.edu
