Commencement Day speakers at Harvard
All professional designations are as of the date of the speaker's address.
| Year | Speaker | Speaker's background |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Oprah Winfrey | Entrepreneur, talk show host |
| 2012 | Fareed Zakaria Ph.D. 1993 |
Host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and editor at large of TIME (video; text of speech; article) |
| 2011 | Ellen Johnson Sirleaf M.P.A. 1971 |
President of Liberia |
| 2010 | David Souter 1961, LL.B. 1966 |
Former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court |
| 2009 | Steven Chu | United States Secretary of Energy |
| 2008 | J.K. Rowling | Author, Harry Potter series |
| 2007 | Bill Gates | Microsoft co-founder |
| 2006 | Jim Lehrer | Author and journalist, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer |
| 2005 | John Lithgow 1967 | Actor and author |
| 2004 | Kofi A. Annan | Secretary-General of the United Nations |
| 2003 | Ernesto Zedillo | Former President of Mexico |
| 2002 | Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Harvard Professor and former U.S. State Senator from New York |
| 2001 | Robert Rubin 1960, LL.B. 1964 | U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1995-1999 |
| 2000 | Amartya Sen | Harvard's Lamont University Professor Emeritus and Professor of Economics and Philosophy |
| 1999 | Alan Greenspan | Chairman of the Federal Reserve |
| 1998 | Mary Robinson | United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland |
| 1997 | Madeleine Albright | U.S. Secretary of State |
| 1996 | Harold Varmus A.M. 1962 | Director of the National Institutes of Health |
| 1995 | Vaclav Havel | President, Czech Republic |
| 1994 | Al Gore 1965 | Vice President of the United States |
| 1993 | Colin Powell | Chairman of the Joint Chiefs |
| 1992 | Gro Harlem Brundtland | Prime Minister of Norway |
| 1991 | Derek Bok LL.B. 1954 | President, Harvard University |
| 1990 | Helmut Kohl | Chancellor of West Germany |
| 1989 | Benazir Bhutto 1973 | Prime Minister of Pakistan |
| 1988 | Oscar Arias | President of Costa Rica |
| 1987 | Richard von Weizsacker | President, Federal Republic of Germany |
| 1986 | Lord Peter Alexander Rupert Carrington | Secretary-General, NATO |
| 1985 | Paul A. Volcker A.M. 1951 | Chairman, Board of Governors Federal Reserve Board |
| 1984 | Juan Carlos I | King of Spain |
| 1983 | Carlos Fuentes | Author and Diplomat |
| 1982 | John Huston Finley | Professor of Greek Literature Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1981 | Thomas John Watson, Jr. | Former President of IBM |
| 1980 | Cyrus Roberts Vance | Secretary of State |
| 1979 | Helmut Schmidt | Chancellor, Federal Republic of Germany |
| 1978 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Nobel Prize-winning Russian novelist |
| 1977 | Barbara Jordan | U.S. Representative |
| 1976 | Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Harvard Professor and former U.S. State Senator from New York |
| 1975 | Archibald Cox 1934, LL.B. 1937 | Professor of Law, Harvard Law School |
| 1974 | Ralph Ellison | Novelist |
| 1973 | Rev. Theodore Hesburgh | President, Notre Dame University |
| 1972 | Roy Harris Jenkins | Former Deputy Leader, Labor Party, Great Britain |
| 1971 | Alan Paton | South African novelist |
| 1970 | Antonio Carillo Flores | Secretary, Foreign Affairs, Mexico |
| 1970 | Louis B. Martin | Editor and Vice President, Sengstacke Publications |
| 1969 | Jean Rey | President Commission of European Communities |
| 1969 | Stewart L. Udall | Former Secretary of the Interior |
| 1968 | Mohammed Pahlevi | Shah of Iran |
| 1967 | Edwin O. Reischauer | University Professor, Harvard University |
| 1966 | W. Averell Harriman | U.S. Ambassador-at-Large |
| 1965 | Adlai E. Stevenson | U.S. Representative to the U.N. |
| 1964 | Alberto Lleras Camargo | Former President of Columbia |
| 1963 | U Thant | Secretary-General, United Nations |
| 1962 | William M. Martin | Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Commission |
| 1962 | Lionel Trilling | Professor of English, Columbia University Critic |
| 1961 | Alexander F. Douglas-Home | Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Great Britain |
| 1961 | F. Cyril James | Vice Chancellor, McGill University |
| 1960 | Robert G. Menzies | Prime Minister, Australia |
| 1960 | Paul-Henry Spaak | Secretary-General, NATO |
| 1959 | Pieter Geyl | Professor, University of Utrecht |
| 1959 | C. Douglas Dillon 1937 | Under-Secretary of State |
| 1958 | Neil McElroy 1925 | Secretary of Defense |
| 1958 | Raymond Aron | French Historian and Journalist |
| 1957 | Erwin Panofsky | Art Historian |
| 1957 | Lady Barbara Jackson | British Author |
| 1956 | Herbert Butterfield | Professor, Cambridge University |
| 1956 | John F. Kennedy 1940 | U.S. Senator |
| 1955 | Luis Munoz Marin | Poet, journalist, politician, Puerto Rico |
| 1955 | Konrad Adenauer | Chancellor, West Germany |
| 1954 | Henry Cabot Lodge 1924 | Former Senator, Massachusetts |
| 1954 | Robert Schuman | Former Prime Minister of France |
| 1954 | Dr. Grayson Kirk | President, Columbia University |
| 1953 | John Phillips Marquand 1915 | Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist |
| 1953 | Lester Bowles Pearson | Canadian statesman, historian |
| 1952 | John Foster Dulles | Politician, New York |
| 1952 | Joseph Sill Clark, Jr. 1923 | Lawyer, politician |
| 1951 | Thornton Niven Wilder | Playwright, novelist |
| 1951 | Warren Austin | Senator from Vermont, 1st U.S. ambassador to U.N. |
| 1951 | Charles Wilson | President of General Electric |
| 1950 | Dean G. Acheson LL.B. 1918 | Statesman, lawyer |
| 1950 | Ralph Edward Flanders | Senator from Vermont |
| 1950 | Carlos Pena Romulo | Politician, Philippines |
| 1949 | Ralph Bunche M.A. 1928, Ph.D. 1934 | Political scientist |
| 1949 | General Lucius Clay | U.S. Army |
| 1949 | Sir Oliver Franks | British Ambassador to the U.N. |
| 1948 | Trygve Lie | First Secretary General, U.N. |
| 1947 | George Catlett Marshall | Secretary of State |
| 1946 | Maurice Joseph Tobin | Labor Secretary, Truman Administration |
| 1945 | Clarence Howe | Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply |
| 1945 | Sir Alexander Fleming | Scientist |
| 1945 | Ernest Joseph King | Fleet Admiral, U.S. Navy |
| 1944 | Walter Lippmann 1919 | Journalist |
| 1943 | Joseph Clark Grew 1902 | Former Ambassador to Japan |
| 1943 | Winston Churchill | Prime Minister, Great Britain |
| 1942 | Henry L. Stimson LL.B. 1890 | Secretary of War |
| 1942 | Dr. Frederick P. Keppel | Former President of Carnegie Corporation |
| 1942 | Raymond Gram Swing | Journalist |
| 1942 | William Franklin Knox | Secretary of the Navy |
| 1941 | Edward Wood | Viscount Halifax, British Ambassador to the U.S. |
| 1941 | Clarence A. Dykstra | Chairman, National Defense Board |
| 1941 | Vannevar Bush | National Defense Research Committee |
| 1940 | Robert Sproul | President, University of California |
| 1940 | Carl Sandburg | Poet |
| 1940 | Cordell Hull | Secretary of State |
| 1938 | John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweesmuir | Head of State, Scottish novelist, historian |
| 1934 | Harold W. Dodds | President, Princeton University |
| 1934 | Charles F. Martin | President, McGill University |
| 1933 | Sir Ronald Lindsay | British civil servant, diplomat |
| 1931 | Sir James Salter | Author, political scientist |
| 1929 | Ernest Barker | Political scientist |
| 1927 | Josiah Stamp 1st Baron Stamp | Public servant, Great Britain |
| 1926 | Arthur William Currie | General, Canadian Corps |
| 1924 | Owen D. Young | Dawes Committee |
| 1923 | William Lyon King | Politician, Canada |
| 1918 | Rufus Daniel Isaacs | Earl of Reading |
| 1917 | Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice | British Ambassador to the United States |
| 1914 | David Franklin Houston M.A. 1892 | U.S. Secretary of Agriculture |
| 1914 | Sir Charles Fitzpatrick | Chief Justice of Canada |
| 1910 | George Walter Prothero | British writer, historian |
| 1909 | Sir William Napier Shaw | British meteorologist |
| 1907 | James Bryce | British historian, statesman, diplomat |
| 1904 | Henry Cabot Lodge 1872 | U.S. Senator, Massachusetts |
| 1904 | Baron Kentaro Kaneko 1878 | Japanese envoy to U.S. |
| 1904 | William Osler | Medical Doctor, Baronet |
| 1900 | Julian Pauncefote | Baron |
| 1898 | John Campbell Gordon | Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair |
| 1890 | Leslie Stephen | English critic, man of letters |
| 1886 | Lyon Playfair | Baron |
| 1884 | Richard Jebb | British classical scholar, politician |
| 1878 | Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood | Marquis of Dufferin and Ava |
| 1875 | Thomas Carlyle | Scottish essayist, historian |
| 1871 | George Robinson | Marquis of Ripon |
| 1862 | John Stuart Mill | British philosopher, economist |
| 1860 | Richard Lyons | Viscount |
| 1858 | Francis Napier | Baron Napier and Ettrica |
| 1853 | James Bruce | Earl of Elgin and Kincardine |
| 1846 | Thomas Grenville | British politician, bibliophile |
| 1844 | Charles Lyell | British lawyer, geologist |
| 1831 | Richard Whately | British rhetorician, logician, economist and theologian |