ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, ’79, will be the keynote speaker at St. Bonaventure University’s 164th commencement May 12 in Reilly Center Arena.
The Rev. Kevin Mullen will receive an honorary doctorate at the ceremony. The former Siena College president (2007-2014) was, since 2014, the provincial minister of Holy Name Province until it merged with five other U.S. Franciscan provinces to become the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in October 2023. A trustee of St. Bonaventure since 2014, his term on SBU’s board expired this month.
Bastian is a 25-year Delta veteran. Since he was named CEO in 2016, Delta has become the world’s most awarded airline, having been named the Wall Street Journal’s top U.S. airline; the top-ranking airline in Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies; the most on-time global airline by FlightGlobal; the Platinum Award recipient for operational excellence by Cirium; among TIME100’s Most Influential Companies; and a Glassdoor Best Place to Work.
Bastian has helped steer Delta, which has more than 100,000 employees worldwide, through the most challenging periods of the company’s history, including 9/11, bankruptcy and COVID-19.
In 2018, Fortune magazine named Bastian among “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” and in 2019, he was elected to the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2021, amidst a global pandemic, Ed was awarded for his Executive Leadership in FlightGlobal’s 2021 Airline Strategy Awards and named among the Top 10 CEOs of 2021 in Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards as a leader who excelled at supporting their people.
Bastian was most recently honored by his peer CEOs and named Chief Executive magazine’s 2023 Chief Executive of the Year. He was also named the 2024 Georgian of the Year by Georgia Trend Magazine.
Bastian joined Delta in 1998, was named chief financial officer in 2005, and was appointed as company president in 2007. He previously held senior finance positions at Frito-Lay International and Pepsi-Cola International. Bastian started his career with Price Waterhouse.
A native of Poughkeepsie, Bastian graduated from SBU with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He received an honorary degree from his alma mater in 2009.
