Mary Thompson to give address at CSB commencement ceremony

Mary Thompson, current Trustee for the College of Saint Benedict and advisor to G100 Network, will deliver the commencement address during the 104th annual commencement ceremony at the College of Saint Benedict at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 11, in Clemens Field House on the CSB campus.

During the ceremony, CSB will present its President's Medal to Mark and Teresa Fleischhacker, generous philanthropists and supporters of CSB’s mission. Mark served on the college’s Board of Trustees for 14 years before his untimely death in 2018. He was present in the lives of students as well as a leader in the boardroom, and Mark served as a mentor to many students involved in the Center for Ethical Leadership in Action.

Maren Koester, a senior psychology major from Bloomington, Minnesota, will be the student commencement speaker.

The 2019 CSB graduating class includes 406 women.

Thompson develops programming and serves as a moderator across all platforms at G100 Network, a provider of peer-to-peer executive education. She was instrumental in developing G100’s program, BoardExcellence, for corporate directors.

She worked as a journalist for 26 years in the broadcast industry. Prior to joining G100 in March 2017, Thompson spent 16 years with CNBC covering the finance and insurance industries, as well as disasters — both natural and manmade — including Hurricane Katrina, the Madoff Scandal and the global financial crisis of 2008. During her time at CNBC, she received numerous awards, including the 2010 Gerald Loeb Award for TV Breaking News and a National Headliners Award.

Thompson began her broadcast career at Bloomberg Radio and Television and prior to that, spent four years in sales at Fidelity Investments. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia University.

She has served on the College of Saint Benedict Board of Trustees since 2013 and served on the development committee for the YMCA of Greater New York from 2013-17. She currently lives in Dublin, Ireland.