NEW YORK, Apr 5, 2011/ — Aerin Lauder, senior vice president and creative director for Estée Lauder, and Tony Hsieh , chief executive officer of Zappos.com, will be the keynote speakers when the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) holds its commencement exercises on Tuesday, May 24 at the Jacob K. Javits Center, Javits Center North.
To accommodate all of the graduates and their guests, two separate commencement ceremonies will be held.
“We believe that by structuring commencement in this way, we will be able to put a more personal focus on the students themselves,” said FIT President Dr. Joyce F. Brown. The events will be live streamed at www.fitnyc.edu/commencement.
Lauder will address students from the School of Art and Design and the School of Graduate Studies at 10:30 am. Hsieh will speak to students from the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology and the School of Liberal Arts at 3:30 pm.
Aerin Lauder has been part of the Estée Lauder Companies for almost 20 years, serving as a director in the family business since 2004.
She began her career at Lauder in 1992 as a member of the Prescriptives marketing team and rose through the ranks of the Estée Lauder division. In her current role, she oversees all creative efforts for Estée Lauder skincare, makeup, and fragrance, including advertising, packaging, store design, and visual merchandising. She also spearheaded the company’s Private Collection fragrances, creating three of the fragrances herself.
Lauder is a member of the board of trustees of Thirteen/WNET, the advisory board of the New York Botanical Garden, Junior Associates of the Museum of Modern Art, and the Costume Institute Visiting Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tony Hsieh, chief executive officer of the shoe and apparel website, Zappos.com, is a visionary internet entrepreneur.
A graduate of Harvard University, Hsieh founded online company, LinkExchange, when he was 23 years old, selling it not long afterwards to Microsoft for $265 million.
An investment fund that Hsieh formed led him to Zappos.com. Under his leadership, the company has reached more than $1 billion in annual sales. In 2009, Zappos.com merged with Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. In his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, published in 2010, Hsieh wrote about his personal evolution, the growth of Zappos.com, and his philosophy of establishing a corporate culture rooted in delivering service, having core values, and putting vision above short-term profit.
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