2017 Broad Commencement Guest Speaker: Todd Penegor

Good afternoon and welcome. It's an honor to be here to celebrate this momentous occasion with you and your loved ones today. I'd like to recognize a few people who are with us today: MSU trustees Melanie Foster and Dan Kelly, whose daughter is graduating today, congratulations. And a big thank you to Dean Gupta, department chairs and faculty. Thank you for your support of all of these students during their college careers and beyond. It's fantastic to be back on campus with the Class of 2017. In many ways, this place is just the same, and yet, so much has changed. When I was graduating 30 years ago, the Breslin Center was just under construction, Tom Izzo was an assistant basketball coach, and we'd only been to two Final Fours. Now he's a Hall of Fame coach, we've been to nine Final Fours, and hopefully another, with Miles Bridges coming back next year.

I'm also excited to see the continued evolution of the Broad School of Business as we continue to rise in the rankings and are about to embark on the Business School Pavilion Project. I especially love that we are among the highest ranked schools in the country in terms of engagement. We are all forever linked by Spartan pride, and the passion to stay connected to this great university will continue to shine through in all of you. When I'm back on campus, I love to see all the familiar landmarks: the rock, the red cedar, the walk down Grand River, and of course a visit to Sparty. The memories each of us have from our time here is something none of us will forget. My time living at East Acres and off-campus on Charles Street created friendships and memories that have lasted a lifetime and always bring a smile back to my face when I return to campus. It's been 30 years since I was sitting right where you are, preparing to receive my Bachelor of Arts in Accounting. I've worked all over the world in the past three decades, but somehow all roads have taken me back to Michigan. When I arrived in East Lansing in 1983, it was eight hours from home and the first time I lived outside of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I grew up in a small town called Iron Mountain, the same hometown as Tommy Izzo. My dad was a certified public accountant. My mom was a homemaker. The year after I left for college, my parents built a Wendy's restaurant in my hometown and became franchise owners. I never worked in my parents' Wendy's restaurant because during summer break, I worked construction on a black top crew, and trust me, I could not wait to get back to school each fall after working long hours on the road. It made me appreciate having an education. But my parents gave me a chance to get involved in the business in a different way, by purchasing a stake in their Wendy's restaurant with the money I earned each summer. Years later, when my wife Jill and I needed cash for down payment on our first house, I sold my ownership stake back to my parents for a nice profit. Pretty cool to say that my first successful investment venture was Wendy's. I graduated from the business school in 1987, just like you are doing here today, ready to enter the world as a newly-minted Spartan, and what did I do once I graduated? Well, I first figured out a way not to leave. I stuck around for grad school and received my MBA in Finance. I started my career at Ford Motor Company. After Ford, I had the opportunity to join another iconic brand, the Kellogg Company. Two great companies and experiences. Fast-forward to 2013, and I took a call from the CEO of Wendy's. He asked me to leave Kellogg's for the opportunity to become the chief financial officer at Wendy's. While I loved Kellogg's, it was a pretty easy decision to make. With my family's background owning a Wendy's restaurant and the great career opportunity, going to Wendy's felt like going home. But it struck me then that this was the first time I'd be working for a company that wasn't based in Michigan. I'd lived and worked all over the world at this point. My career with Ford and Kellogg brought me to Korea, the UK, Germany, France, and Dublin, Ireland, but I'd always had Michigan as a home base and now that was ending, or at least I thought. The first thing you do when you join Wendy's is you read Dave's autobiography, the Dave's Way, of our founder Dave Thomas. As I read Dave's Way, I learned that he opened his first Wendy's in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, not far from where our current headquarters are today. But the idea of Wendy's began many years before that, when a nine year old Dave Thomas would spend summers with his grandmother working in a restaurant. It was there that Dave got the idea for using only high-quality, fresh ingredients and it was there, from his Grandma Minnie, that he conceived the iconic square hamburger because she taught him to never cut corners. So how did all of this come full circle for me? Well, this restaurant wasn't in Columbus, Ohio. It was in Augusta, Michigan, just about an hour away from here. So technically, I'm still batting a thousand working for companies that were founded in Michigan.

I'd like to tell you that I had a grand plan for my life and my career, but the truth is I didn't. I don't know how many corporate CEOs started out as pre-dentistry majors, but I'm one of them. That doesn't mean that my path has been random, and yours won't be, either. With a strong Spartan work ethic, value system, and educational training, I know that your paths will take you on many adventures in your life. Well, it might be nice to know the future. We all know that's not realistic. Yet, you didn't come this far and accomplish this much already by simply going with the flow. You have plans, just as I did when I sat in your seat. You have dreams and aspirations and you're eager to achieve them. I hope I can share a few words of advice and encouragement from one Spartan to another as you embark on this journey. As my many connections to Michigan's demonstrate, life has a way of coming full circle and that happens in a lot of ways. What you put out in the world will eventually come back to you. So plant seeds early in your career that you will be happy to harvest for the rest of it. You may not be thinking of yourself as a business leader right now. When I was in your shoes, I was just focused on finding my first job. I felt lucky to be going to Michigan State and because my dad was a CPA, I thought that sounded like a career plan for me, too. And it was, I started working part-time with a local computer consulting firm in town as an accountant, while working on my MBA, which led me to Ford in their college graduate training program. I was given so many opportunities with roles in accounting, treasury, strategy, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and even spin-offs with divisions such as Visteon. I found success along the way doing what I've always known right from my upbringing in the Upper Peninsula: work hard and be a good team player. I didn't care who got the credit, I just wanted to win. But I also learned that the boldest dream you can think of today may be just a starting point for your future. So always be open for new opportunities. For me, that big opportunity came after I left Ford for Kellogg. My time at Ford had broadened my view beyond accounting and I knew I wanted to be a chief financial officer. To be the CFO of a public company seemed like a dream job and I assumed every job change I took from then on would be present steps up the finance ladder. I moved to Chicago and worked on the integration of the Keebler business into Kellogg. Later, I took an assignment with our European business and my family and I relocated to Ireland. After eight years in finance roles at Kellogg, the CEO of Kellogg, John Bryant, offered me an opportunity I would have never dreamed of while living in Ireland. He asked me to come back to Battle Creek and become the president of the Snacks division. I hadn't considered myself a general manager until then and probably wouldn't have pursued it myself, but because someone else saw more in me than I saw in myself, it opened up a whole new world of career potential and I found my true passion as a business leader. It didn't come without risk. When I asked John if he saw any downside to the new job, he answered, 'Well, the risk is you fail miserably, of course.' Not exactly reassuring, but I appreciated the honesty and the opportunity. My advice to all of you is to be bold, take advantage of the opportunities that you see or are given even if they weren't in your original plan. You're a Spartan after all, and who will, Spartans will. In your quest for success, boldness is key. But boldness alone won't do the trick, unless it's tempered with a healthy dose of humility. Failing miserably may be the results you get because another absolute imperative to success is teamwork. Teamwork just doesn't mean leading a winning team. I believe to be the best leader you can be, you might have to sit on the bench of a winning team before you're a starter on a losing team. In your career, look for All Star teams, not teams of all stars. Over the years, I've learned that the best teams are full of people who are more interested in seeing the team win than their own personal glory. As a leader, that means seek out people who have different experiences than you and are smarter than you because you will all become better together. You must have the intellectual curiosity to grow. Take the time to listen to learn and always remain focused on creating an even better tomorrow. Be part of teams that love working together, that have passion, that hate to lose and love to win, that are never outworked or out-prepared. When you're joining a company, find answers to the following questions: Do the people talk about themselves, or do they talk about the team? Do you feel like you could take risks there, fail fast and learn quickly, and if you do have setbacks, will the rest of the team have your back? Does everyone seem to play their positions, or do you always have teammates that always want to be in the spotlight? Of course you should be hungry for success, but it's just as important to be humble enough to allow someone else to shine, and approachable enough that people will want to come to you with the information you need to make good decisions.

When I was running the Snacks business at Kellogg, people were often surprised to see me out on the delivery route with the driver, setting up cookie displays in supermarkets. But I found out I could learn more about our business and how it was doing from one day in the field than a whole month of meetings in the office. When I became the CEO at Wendy's, I made a similar commitment to our franchisees, that I'd spend at least three days every month out in the field with the restaurant teams. It's not easy to do, time is precious, and there's never enough of it. And it also takes courage. I don't care how much education you have or how many degrees you've earned, working the sandwich line at lunch is hard. Great business leaders are coaches. You set a vision, you make sure your team is hungry for success, but humble too. You share information and build trust. You inspire and motivate those around you and most importantly, you win as a team. Good guys don't finish last, great teams finish first. So if you dream big and always look for a winning team to play on, you're well on your way to a rewarding career journey. But leadership is not just a privilege, it's also a responsibility to leave the people and the communities you are impacting better than you found it, and to make a difference in a positive way. At Wendy's, I was fortunate to inherit a great team with a solid business strategy that I helped create. I wasn't coming in to turn around the company. Instead, I was responsible for taking a great company and charting our future to accelerated growth. One of the first things I did wasn't anything related to business strategy. I gathered our team and together, we tried to answer one simple question: what's our purpose as a business? Said another way, what would the world be missing without Wendy's? And we realized that while we make great hamburgers and iconic Frostys, that is not our highest calling. We felt our unique contribution to the world is to create joy and opportunity for people, and we do that through our food, our family, and our community. Joy comes in a lot of forms: the way we delight the families we serve in our restaurants every day, but more importantly, the work we do to help build families across the country. One of my greatest joys is having the privilege to serve on the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, as we use our company's success and visibility to help children in foster care find loving forever families. It's a legacy left to us by our founder, Dave Thomas, and one that makes going into work every day more meaningful for our entire system. Opportunity's a powerful idea. It means giving the opportunity to people for a first job and a chance to develop skills they will use for the rest of their career. For others, our restaurants are a career path, a way to provide stability and flexibility for their families as they pursue education or seek out management opportunities. Opportunity also means sharing our brand with the hundreds of family businesses who own franchises, just like my family did. Franchising combines the freedom of entrepreneurship with the comfort of being part of something bigger than yourself. As a franchisee, you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. Being part of the Michigan State family is kind of like a franchise, too. As of today, you not only represent yourself, you also represent our Spartan community, and you represent the business community and all the potential good that together we can bring to people's lives. Ultimately, what I wish for most of you will find in your careers is what I hope you have found here at Michigan State: a place where you'll find both intellectual challenges, global opportunity and personal connections, and a place that you will always be proud to return to. As you leave here today, grow into great leaders. Remember that you must win the hearts of your teams before their heads will follow, and to win their hearts, you must first give yours. To be a leader, connect to the communities you serve, find causes and chase dreams that you can pour your heart and soul into, make it your life's work to use the skills you've built here to do good in the world. Have passion for all you do and have fun doing it. Be all in with whatever you are doing, be engaged, be energized, be enabled, and be sure to enjoy the ride. Class of 2017, you can make a difference, you will make a difference. Who will, Spartans will. Good luck, have fun, be proud, Go Green.