1. SRM UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION, CHENNAI, INDIA 1 | P A G E
Dr. Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral (Retd.), US Navy,
Special Convocation of SRM University
Vanakah.
Honorable Chancellor and Vice Chancellor and all of the distinguished guests
recognized by the Vice Chancellor as well as students, graduates, Faculty and families –
Thank you for the honor and privilege of speaking to you today. I am especially indebted
to your Vice Chancellor, Dr. Prabrir Bagchi, for providing this opportunity to share a few
thoughts on this very special day. I am thrilled to be here amongst you and so very
impressed by what happens here at SRM University every day and with the breadth and
depth of scholarship and your internationalization efforts.
With your partnerships in Canada, the US and elsewhere and with partnerships such as
you have with Carnegie-Mellon University, SRM University is leading the way in scholarship
as well as essential partnership development. Your professional placement statistics are
most impressive and are a clear indication of the investment the University is making in all
of its students – from undergraduate to doctoral level. Dr. Bagchi’s sentiments when he
calls the students “beloved” is also a clear indication of the investment in the students.
The University’s leaders are driving toward a bold vision that will set a pace for others and
that is appropriate to the aspirations and intellectual prowess that are India.
Probably the happiest people here are the parents, spouses and families and well should
you be. Thank you for supporting the person who is your graduate today. In their
advanced scholarship each has worked hard and, in your own way, your support has
been essential to the successful completion of his or her chosen field of study and
mastery. It is indeed a moment of joy and celebration!
India and its people have such a long and distinguished history of scholarship and
achievement. Indeed, the Indian migration story throughout the world is a story of
magnificent success. This is as much so in the United States, where the Indian story is a
spectacular legacy of leadership and accomplishment in every facet of American life.
To be with you today is my own way of thanking the Indian people for your contributions
to my country and to the world. Nandri
This is not my first time in India. I was here in 2010, as the guest of now retired Indian Army
Lieutenant General Prakesh Menon, in commemoration of the Indian Defense College
golden jubilee. The event was another example of Indian intellectual leadership as we
discussed important strategic and professional issues. I learned much during that entirely
engaging experience.
I began my own professional journey with a certain decidedness about what mattered
to me professionally – the opportunity to lead. At the end of my career in the United
States Navy I had attained the rank of a three star Vice Admiral and, along the way, had
studied at various universities and earned my doctorate. From there I worked for IBM in
the Watson Group, which is IBM’s cognitive computing and artificial intelligence project
and am now associated with a consulting firm that advises on organizational
transformation. I did these things often defined by what I was not as much as by what I

2. SRM UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION, CHENNAI, INDIA 2 | P A G E
was. Obviously, in the U.S. Navy I was not a man, yet I was very much at the time in a
male culture – much has certainly changed since I first joined the Navy. I was also not a
trained engineer in two organizations, the Navy and IBM, which depend highly on the
engineering disciplines – though in all cases what I did have was the ability to learn,
contribute to mission, lead teams to success and to develop and advocate for
progressive approaches to solutions. In all cases being an effective, engaged, sensible,
optimistic, earnest, and informed leader and performer who cared about and valued
those around me served my success.
Along such a journey I have obviously contemplated many things. Two come to mind at
this moment today as we honor your own successes: Choices and Decisions.
First, choices. No matter your level of academic achievement your generation is the
most choice-rich in the history of human kind. Having choices is about having the
opportunity to select from a menu of possibilities. The interesting thing about choices
today is that they have become somewhat more elastic and actually more dynamic
than ever before: choices of certitude are less certain and less guaranteed, choices of
risk are often at the same time more exposing and yet more forgiving. In the Information
Age, some choices are clearly more immediate and always more democratic and often
more chaotic, more non-linear and more unpredictable in nature. And…our choices are
more broadcast and sometimes more accountable.
Literature, both great and not-so-great, is replete with stories of choices. Crossing cultural
divides, let me suggest a story that many of us know and that may surprise you as my
example: “Harry Potter“ In the last chapter of Book two there is quite possibly the wisest
of all wise things written in all of the Harry Potter books. At the end of Book two Harry
ponders about why things happened the way they did, trying to understand how he got
into the circumstances he did. As he tries to discern his potential for evil the wise
Dumbledore gloriously reassures Potter about his chosen courses of action. Dumbledore
ends his assessment of Harry’s actions with this comment: “It is our choices, Harry, that
show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
So, you who are of the educated class in India and the world, I gently and respectfully
ask that you consider your choices wisely, even as you have acquired new abilities. What
are your ethical choices? Your personal choices? Your choices of prejudice and
judgment? Your choices of obligation and pleasure? Your choices of love? Your choices
of self-concern and concern for others? Your choices for happiness as well as of
satisfaction for work well done? What are the choices we make in our profession, our
lives and our knowledge when it comes to applying what we know to how we solve
problems and find new opportunities?
The questions for us today are about the choices we will make as educated and informed
leaders in our countries and in our world. This is not hyperbole or overstatement. Never
in the history of human kind have so many personal choices had so much strategic
potential. Never before have inductive reasons of the elements of life so affected the
deductive logic of Life itself.

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For me, while I can certainly be proud and grateful for making some excellent choices, I
have reflected hard on other choices, often tinged with questions, doubts, errors and
mistakes. For me, choices have also been at times surprising in ways both bad and good.
Choices have at times led to frustrating ends and marvelous discoveries. What has
always been essential to good choices is being informed, being curious, often of being
brave and courageous, and always being mindful of what is good, right, decent,
honorable and worthy and always with a view toward consequences and
accountability.
My positive challenge to you is this – as leaders, as parents, as husbands and wives, as
citizens, as the educated class of the world, the choices you make matter. They have
impact. You have impact. Your leadership matters and the choices you make in this
highly informed world will be essential. More than ever your choices really matter and
what and how you believe has the potential for doing great harm and great good. We
become accountable for our beliefs in the choices we make. WHAT we choose matters.
On a grander scale, our decisions also matter. Decisions are more complex than choices
in that choices are from a menu of options and though decisions have options
imbedded, there is also a requirement for deeper understanding. Choices have a
personal quality to them. Decisions have an “other” quality to them.
Your generation is extraordinary in so many ways. Never in the history of humankind has
there been such a democratization of effect of individuals and societies. Never in the
history of a leadership generation will so much be asked and never will there be less room
for error. It will be assumed that your generation has all the information it could possibly
need to inform decisions that will be precisely right. Local and national leaders in politics,
public service and government, science, engineering, bio-technology, health, medicine,
industry – they will all be expected to have the right answer just in time with the best
solution. It will be assumed that you have a mastery of what I call the physics of decision-
making: that while the mass and volume of information will be unprecedented, the
speed and compression of answers and expectations will also be without precedence.
What will be required of your generation more than any other is nearly instantaneous
access to and mastery of insight, discernment, and good judgment. The expectation for
aligned speed, accuracy and knowledge has usually outpaced the ability to deliver –
until this time – your time.
The Age is remarkable and the Future is impressive in its potential and daunting in its
requirements. There is bad and good in the possibilities. I have never known of a good
decision made with perfect and complete information. Mostly, good decisions are
made with sufficient information in combination with wisdom, quality dialogue,
exchange of ideas, good instincts, rich experience, honorable beliefs, diverse
participants, keen insights and sensitivity to consequences, both intended and
unintended. There is a social context to the best decisions – sharing ideas and sharpening
the critical edges of thinking and the creative juices of innovating. There is also an ever
increasing shared sense of social justice in the decisions we make.
As literature often is a story about choices, history is clearly a story about decisions. The
intersection between them is simple. It is us – us as individuals. The choices we make

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individually as leaders will inform the decisions we make collectively, as societies. HOW
we decide matters.
Today, in the world, SRM University graduates – you – are better able to discern the
meaning and impact of important questions. You are part of the generation that will
lead the world in decisions and lead by personal example in your choices. The brilliant
dynamic you will apply to the future will have in it a balance between digging for
information and mining for understanding and meaning.
The pursuit of knowledge is such an ennobling and deeply humanizing act. It is a lifelong
jorney that enhances our dignity and sense of self-worth. I encourage you to choose
wisely where and how you spend your knowledge time. Never in human history have so
many people been so educated and so able to access information. Our decisions must
be those that are informed and make things better as acquired and analyzed
knowledge. You are the Knowledge Leaders of an extraordinary future. My! How good
the future world looks when I see it through the prism of your leadership potential.
Today many things will be said in celebration and recognition and most of it will be
forgotten. What is heard outside of ourselves at these kinds of occasions becomes
passing as we move from these moments of ritual and celebration to the Mondays of our
lives – to the business of getting on with life and all that it has to offer in our potential for
impact and making a difference.
I ask you to just remember from today two questions: WHAT will you choose? HOW will
you decide? In your respective professions your answers matter and WILL define the
future of our world. Though at times I think the world looks dark and the future seems so
problematic, I am uplifted and regain my optimism on days like today, when I am with
you – the leaders of tomorrow’s best solutions. You inspire me and all those you touch.
So go forth now and lead. Do good things for your families, your communities, your
country and our world. You matter deeply to us all.
Finally, find joy and give a bit of the joy of yourselves to others – you will be amazed as to
how much impact you will have just in doing the simple things that make life brighter,
more cheerful, deeper and better. Laugh! Joy energizes. In our choices, let us do what
we can to energize others to their potential and best of themselves. That will then reflect
the best in ourselves. Let our heritage be one that uplifts.
Choose well. Decide well! Act well! Lead well! Give happiness! Contribute! Make a
difference!
Again, Congratulations and all best wishes to you – the world’s next new and best
educated generation of leaders.
Happy Divani. Nandri.