When Zanny Minton Beddoes MPA 1992, editor-in-chief of the Economist, addressed the HKS Class of 2026 as the Commencement speaker on Wednesday, she admitted she hadn’t shown up for her own. The moment she told her parents, she regretted it—“and all the more so now,” she added, “when I see what I missed.”
Minton Beddoes looked out over the crowd of 632 graduating students, from 36 U.S. states and 80 countries, and their families. Her own parents were watching the livestream—catching up on the ceremony they missed 34 years prior.
She explained that she’d taken a semester off while at HKS, then finished halfway through the year and dove into work. Minton Beddoes was in Ukraine at the time, “too absorbed in my work to come back.”
“An explanation, though not an excuse,” she said, “is that the early 1990s was an intoxicating time for a public-policy graduate.” The Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989, and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were transforming.
“It was a moment of vast change, when the wheels of history moved slightly faster. And it was a moment that shaped my life—and the reasons that it did so were almost entirely due to the Kennedy School.”
Our current moment, she said, is also a time of vast transformation—and how this year’s graduates meet it will shape their lives, too. “Today’s world is also changing at a dizzying pace. Now, as then, we are seeing dramatic shifts in geopolitics and economic policy. But today there is an even more head-spinning dimension—as you all know very well—we are in the early stages of the AI era, quite possibly the biggest technological revolution in history. So your careers therefore begin at a greater moment of upheaval than mine did.”
“But there are echoes,” she explained, between the two moments. So, she shared lessons from her time working in Eastern Europe and “what is now three decades of watching public events up close.”
Her message was simple: “Periods of dramatic upheaval can feel overwhelming. Don’t be overwhelmed. It is precisely at times like this that individuals can have outsized impact. The key, I really believe, is to be open-minded, to seek out those with whom you disagree, to make peace with your own insecurities, and to look forward with optimism—oh, and a Kennedy School experience will be invaluable. Mine certainly was.”
Minton Beddoes spoke about working for Poland’s finance minister as a graduate student and calling on her HKS skills—writing a policy memo, doing data analysis, understanding agricultural economics—in the role. “Most of all, my association with HKS brought me confidence—and credibility,” she explained, especially in moments meeting with senior Polish ministry officials at least twice her age.
Her observations of Polish socialism, she said, shaped her beliefs in “the values of classical English liberalism—limited government, open markets, and free speech.” It also showed her how disconcerting, and sometimes scary, rapid change could be. Eventually, she moved to the International Monetary Fund to focus on macroeconomic reform, and then to the Economist, where she’s been since 1994.
She spoke of how much she learned, and also missed, in her work: “Too many of us in the 1990s and 2000s spent too little time thinking about how to help people who had lost out from globalization.”
She explained that “unfortunately, in the real world of public policy you don’t get to redo the course. So the best we can do is learn lessons from our mistakes, and look forward. And that is your challenge. You face a world shaped by my generation’s successes—and by our failures.”
Minton Beddoes said that the Class of 2026 faces a world in which “industrial policy and government intervention are on the rise,” and “the geopolitical quake has been even bigger.” Now, she said, “large parts of the ‘rules-based’ international order are on life support.’” Even these huge shifts, though, are “likely to be dwarfed by the transformations AI is bringing.”
She called on the graduates to respond: “You are the people who will determine which way things go. You will build that new world. You know that—it's why you are here. But, whatever your plans and ambitions, let me urge you to think even bigger and more boldly. You’ve got a lot to do—partly because of where my generation fell short.”
“Whatever your plans and ambitions, let me urge you to think even bigger and more boldly.”
Fortunately, she said, the HKS graduates were ready.
“You have all the training and tools you need to do this. You’ve done the coursework. You’ve learned from some of the brightest minds in the world, your professors here at Harvard. Now it’s a question of getting things done, being the people who make change happen.”
She offered four pieces of advice for making that change:
First, she said, “seek out the individuals who will make a difference…Government will always have the charlatans, the venal types—the men with oddly fancy watches and shiny suits who are in it for themselves,” she explained, and “the timekeepers—the people who prize safety and stability.” But, she said, “there are also always remarkable individuals: seek them out—and make sure you are in the same room as them.”
Next, she said, “Be curious and take risks. I would say this, as a journalist, but ask questions, demand explanations for why things are the way they are…similarly, take risks. If you have an opportunity, grab it. I’ve only ever regretted things I haven’t done.”
She also called upon students to “engage with people with whom you disagree,” adding “you won’t get progress from talking to like-minded people in an echo chamber.” It’s why, she said, she’s interviewed controversial figures like Tucker Carlson and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Finally, she called for optimism and confidence: “Always consider the glass half full. Make peace with your insecurities and always look forward.”
Minton Beddoes spoke of her own struggle with imposter syndrome and her realization over time that “you don’t need to be good at everything to be a good leader.”
“What matters,” she said, is for graduates to know themselves, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and to “look forward with optimism. No one is inspired by a pessimist.”
She noted that her list of suggestions “sounds more like relationship advice” than guidelines for public service.
“But in the end,” she said, “public service is about people: your impact will depend on your vision and your ambition, but it will also depend on your ability to bring others with you.”
And as Minton Beddoes ended her speech, she had her own moment of community—Dean Jeremy Weinstein surprised her with a graduation cap and an honorary certificate.
“Now I imagine and hope that your HKS diploma is already hanging proudly on the wall of your office back in London, but given that you weren't able to walk across this stage in1992, we at HKS wanted to give you a bit of that experience here today,” Weinstein said. “So by the powers vested in me by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, I hereby you declare you, Zanny, that you have officially graduated from the Kennedy School—let's get that picture for your mom and dad!"
Minton Beddoes grinned and posed for pictures—and she and the Class of 2026 celebrated their graduation.
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Photography by Jessica Scranton.
Captions: In banner image, Zanny Minton Beddoes gives her address. In body of article, graduates take a selfie with Minton Beddoes, and Dean Jeremy Weinstein presents her with a graduation cap and diploma since she was unable to attend her own HKS Diploma Ceremony in 1992.
Thank you, Dean Weinstein. Harvard Kennedy School Class of 2026: Congratulations!
My fellow MPAs, MPPs, Mid-Career MPAs, MPA/IDs, and those incredible individuals among you getting your PhDs—to all of you from more than 100 countries: you’ve done it!
You’ve done it!
All those course credits, those hours in study groups on the Forum stairs—which are exactly the same as they were when I was here—those long nights at your computer: they’re behind you. What an achievement. You should really be so proud. And I am so proud and so honored to be here to share this wonderful moment with you.
Particularly since this is my first Harvard graduation.
Yep, you heard that right. Thirty-four years ago, I should have been sitting where you are. But, to my parents’ great disappointment—I wasn’t bad, Dean Weinstein, don’t worry, I fulfilled my credits—because I’d taken a semester off during my studies, I finished halfway through the year. So by the time commencement came around, I was in Ukraine, too absorbed in my work to come back.
I regretted that decision the moment I saw the disappointment on my parents’ faces, and all the more so now, when I see what I missed. Graduation really is an important milestone, not just for you, but for all the family and friends who supported you along the way.
HKS family and friends: this is your day too. So can we have a round of applause for parents, caregivers, family, friends? This really is your day too.
And to my parents, who are still going strong and who will watch this: Mama and Papa, I hope this sort of makes up for things—only 34 years late.
An explanation, though not an excuse, is that the early 1990s was an intoxicating time for a public policy graduate. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the beginning of a transformation that rippled across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It was a moment of vast change, when the wheels of history moved slightly faster.
And it was a moment that shaped my life. The reason that it did so was almost entirely due to the Kennedy School.
And there are parallels between the early 1990s and today. Today’s world is also changing at a dizzying pace. Now, as then, we’re seeing dramatic shifts in geopolitics and economic policy.
But today there is an even more head-spinning dimension. As you all know very well, we are in the early stages of the AI era—quite possibly the biggest technological revolution in history. So your careers, therefore, begin at a moment of even greater upheaval than mine did.
But there are echoes. And so, in the hope that it might be relevant for you, I wanted to reflect a bit on my experience. I’ll start with my time in Eastern Europe and what that taught me about public policy, and then offer you a few thoughts on how to effect change, based on what is now three decades of watching public events up close.
And in a nutshell, my message to you is simple: periods of dramatic upheaval can feel overwhelming. Don’t be overwhelmed. It is precisely at times like this that individuals can have outsized impact.
The key, I really believe, is to be open-minded; to seek out those with whom you disagree; to make peace with your own insecurities; and to look forward with optimism.
I know the Kennedy School experience will be invaluable. Mine certainly was.
I arrived at the Kennedy School in September 1989, shortly before the Berlin Wall fell. I was gripped by the news. My mother is German, born in what is now Poland, and I spent part of my childhood in Germany. The events there felt very close.
So when a friend of mine told me that Jeffrey Sachs, a professor in the economics department, was recruiting a group of graduate students to spend the summer helping Leszek Balcerowicz, the newly installed finance minister of Poland’s first post-communist government, I knew I wanted to be part of that group.
So I went to see Professor Sachs in his office hours in the Littauer Building in the economics department, and I made the case for why he should take me along. I knew that agriculture was important in Poland, so I told him I grew up on a farm. I also told him that I spoke German and Russian, and I suggested that Polish was somewhere in between the two.
Now, those of you from Poland, please forgive that gross linguistic slur.
But it convinced Professor Sachs, and he invited me to join the group.
In Warsaw, we worked in a cramped office on the second floor of the Soviet-style finance ministry. We wrote memos. We built spreadsheets. And my Kennedy School classes really were invaluable. I knew how to write a policy memo—summary recommendations at the top. I could do data analysis. I even knew the basics of agricultural economics. Thank you, Professor Peter Timmer.
But most of all, my association with HKS gave me confidence and credibility.
I remember vividly going to a meeting at the agriculture ministry to present Professor Sachs’s plan for getting rid of farm tariffs. I was 23. A colleague who was with me was a few years older—not very many.
And we arrived, and we found a dozen ministry officials sitting on the other side of the table. They were at least twice our age, and they’d spent decades working in the communist regime.
As we sat down, the most senior of them looked across the table and said to me, “What are your credentials?”
There was a moment of silence. I really felt like an imposter. But then I said, “I’m at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.”
They still looked skeptical. But it was enough for the conversation to start.
Both my convictions and my career were shaped there. It instilled in me a firm belief in the values of classical English liberalism: limited government, open markets, and free speech.
I really saw firsthand that socialism didn’t work, that incentives matter, and that bold change can bring big results. Economic reform for me there in Poland was not just equations in a textbook.
I saw the impact of freeing prices and freeing the exchange rate every day as I walked to work.
Every day, I walked past the old state store. Its shelves were either empty or filled with row upon row of the same kind of thing, like tinned fish that nobody wanted to buy.
And outside, on the pavement—or the sidewalk, as some of you insist on calling it—was an informal bazaar: dozens of stalls set up by enterprising folk who had driven in their Polski Fiat cars to Berlin and bought bananas, chocolates, women’s lingerie—all the kinds of things that people actually wanted to buy.
Free markets, I saw, really did bring people freedom.
But I also learned that dramatic change is disconcerting. I learned up close how it meets resistance from entrenched interests, including officials at the ministries where I worked. And I saw fear when I visited state farms in Ukraine—workers worried that their livelihoods were gone.
It was really an important lesson because, whatever the benefits, for many people rapid progress is very scary.
By this time, I knew that I wanted to work on economic policy. I went to the IMF, home to the high priests of macroeconomic reform, and I spent a couple of years there, first working on West Africa and then on Central Asia, before realizing that I wasn’t really cut out for a large bureaucracy.
I preferred writing to building models. And so I left for The Economist, where I’ve been now for three decades—first writing about emerging economies, then a long spell in Washington, D.C., trying to make sense of America’s economy, and then back to London in this job.
Leading The Economist has genuinely been a huge privilege. The newspaper—because that’s what we still like to call it—was founded in 1843, as Dean Weinstein said, to champion the values that I cherish: free societies and free markets.
And I’m surrounded by a group of amazingly talented people committed to those values and to helping our subscribers make sense of the world.
And from this perch, I’ve been lucky enough to have a ringside seat at several decades of world events.
Now, this era that my career spanned is viewed with considerable skepticism. It’s the globalist era, where free-market excess meant elites did well and workers were hurt. It was the era of naivety about China and American hubris as the world’s sole superpower.
And some of these criticisms I disagree with. I still believe in free trade and free markets and fiscal discipline, however unfashionable they now are.
But some of those critiques were spot on. Too many of us in the 1990s and 2000s spent too little time thinking about how to help people who had lost out from globalization. We were geopolitically naïve, especially about China. We really thought economic freedom would propel political freedom.
And too many people equated good policy with preserving the status quo.
Unfortunately, in the real world of public policy, you don’t get to redo the course. So the best we can do is learn lessons from our mistakes and look forward.
And that is your challenge.
You face a world shaped by my generation’s successes and by our failures.
The pendulum has shifted sharply in economics. As you know, industrial policy and government intervention are on the rise.
The geopolitical quake has been even bigger, and much of it has happened while you have been here at the Kennedy School.
You’ve seen America become more focused on hard-power projection and a transactional foreign policy. There are deep fissures in the transatlantic relationship. Large parts of the rules-based international order are on life support.
But dramatic as these changes are, they are likely to be dwarfed by the transformations AI is bringing.
The potential clearly is huge. We really could live a lot longer in a world of far greater abundance. We could have the tools to deal with the toughest problems, from cancer to climate change.
But AI also brings significant dangers. And it could well cause disruption on a scale that will make the globalization shock seem trifling.
You are the people who will determine which way things go. You will build that new world. You know that—it’s why you’re here.
But whatever your plans and ambitions, let me urge you to think even bigger and more boldly.
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