"Be adaptable. Be curious. Be kind." - Chobani Founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya delivers keynote to Class of 2025

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"Be adaptable. Be curious. Be kind." - Chobani Founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya delivers keynote to Class of 2025

Hamdi Ulukaya addresses Class of 2025 at Undergraduate Commencement

"Use your Utica education to lift someone else up, to build something better, to remind the world that humanity at its best is still unbeatable."

Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and CEO of Chobani, was raised in a dairy-farming family in a small village in eastern Turkey. After moving to the United States, he founded Chobani in 2005 with the mission and vision of making high-quality food more accessible. Five years after selling the first cup of yogurt, Chobani was a billion-dollar brand, and today is the #1 selling yogurt brand in the U.S.

The company has since expanded to an innovative modern food portfolio, adding coffee creamers and oat milk. In 2023, Chobani acquired La Colombe, a leading coffee roaster with a shared commitment to quality, craftmanship and impact. As a result, the Company began selling cold-pressed espresso and lattes on tap at cafes nationwide, as well as Ready to Drink (RTD) coffee beverages at retail.

As a leader in the food and beverage industry, Ulukaya built Chobani on the foundation that it would do well by doing good.

Ulukaya is well-known for his employee-first policies, including instituting innovative profit-sharing and paid parental leave programs for Chobani’s 3,000-plus employees, and implementing competitive hourly wage increases well above the federal rate. He has also become a leading voice in the movement to hire refugees and immigrants, having discovered through his own experience of hiring them that “the minute a refugee gets a job is the minute they stop being a refugee.”

This inspired him to start the Tent Partnership for Refugees in 2016, an international network of leading companies committed to helping refugees connect to jobs. Ulukaya also signed the Giving Pledge, committing the majority of his personal wealth to help bring an end to the refugees crisis.

For those efforts, Ulukaya was named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and received the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Award, among other recognitions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres named him as a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate.

Ulukaya has received the Oslo Business for Peace Award and George H.W Bush Points of Light Award, is a Global Citizen Prize winner, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for his work on the refugee crisis and his innovative approach to business.

As the keynote speaker to the Utica University Undergraduate Class of 2025, Ulukaya had much advice and wisdom to offer.

“Mister President, members of the board, faculty and staff, family and friends, and most of all, to the graduates - if I’m not the first to say it, let me be the loudest to say: Congratulations, Class of 2025.

“Graduates, I’ve got to tell you, as Mothers’ Day gifts go, today is going to be Tough to beat. Now, I know you just gave your parents and loved ones a standing ovation, but if there is anyone in the world that deserves TWO standing ovations, it’s your mom. So, graduates, let’s stand one more time if you’re able and show your moms what they mean to you.”

“I come here today not just as the Founder of Chobani, but as a neighbor who has lived in this community for over 20 years. I have to confess, if you had told me when I first came here that 20 years later I’d be delivering a commencement speech in English, I would have said ‘you are out of your mind!!!’

“You see, I grew up as a shepherd on a mountain in Turkey tending to sheep and goats. When I was a college student, something horrible happened that made me leave the country. When I first came to America, to New York City, I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have money, I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t have a plan and I didn’t even know America had farms.

“But by some miracle of fate, I was invited to come upstate and I found something here far more valuable than money or a business idea. I found neighbors. I found kindness. I found a community of people who didn’t ask who I was. They just welcomed me. I felt home.

“And now, all these years later, I’m here to say thank you. 20 years ago I made a bet on an old factory in this community and it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. And -I’m so proud that a couple of weeks ago I came back here, just down the road to Rome to announce that Chobani is building a new state of the art manufacturing plant on the site of Griffiss Air Force Base which will create another 1,000 jobs. Thank you to this community for being the very best of America.

“Graduates, I hope you feel very proud today. You got to your 9 a.m. classes, at least most of them. You read the books. At least most of them. You passed the exams. You finished the papers. You survived group projects. And now you’re graduating into a world that is moving faster than ever before.

“And if you have read the headlines or scrolled Tik Tok, you’ve probably heard that some people have a special phrase to describe this moment in time. They say we’re living in an ‘Age of Anxiety.’ Between economic uncertainty, historic floods, non-stop global conflict, and eggs that cost more than chicken - it’s a pretty weird moment to join the workforce.

“But among all the noise, one thing we should pay attention to that is driving this anxiety is artificial intelligence. Now, since Chobani is all natural, all the time, I don’t have much practice talking about anything artificial. But we’re told by the experts that AI is coming for our jobs? That what you studied at Utica might be extinct in a few years? That within a decade, AI might even replace doctors and teachers? We can only hope it will never learn how to make yogurt.

“But here’s the thing. This is not the first time people are fearful of the unknown and wondering how the heck they’ll get through it. In fact, almost every generation in the past 2,000 or so years had some technology come along that convinced them the world was coming to an end.

“When electricity was invented, people feared it would kill them in their sleep. When the telephone arrived, people said it would destroy face-to-face communication. When radios came along, people thought it was the end of reading books. When personal computers landed, people said they would take all the jobs and replace us. Believe it or not, there were even people, very serious people like Socrates, more than 2,000 years ago, who worried that paper itself was a dangerous invention because when people started to write things down it would lead to barbarism and moral decay.

“Just imagine what Socrates would have thought about Snapchat. Every generation meets something new with a little bit of panic. But the best way to greet it isn’t with fear. It’s with curiosity.

“I love this phrase that I heard online and I wish I could remember who said it, but it goes ‘It is okay to have fear. Just move forward with your fear. Fear Forward.’ Meaning that it’s okay to be fearful, just don’t be afraid. Don’t let it paralyze you. Instead, use it as motivation to take action and Fear Forward.

“But here’s the thing about this moment you’re stepping into. It’s not just the Age of Anxiety. It’s the Age of Unbelievable Possibility. Because the experts also say we’re entering a time when AI could help us solve diseases that have affected humanity for centuries. They say It could unlock answers in physics, climate science, and education that we’ve been chasing for millennia. It can distribute knowledge that was once stuck in ivory towers and make it accessible to everyone.

“So, a kid in rural New York or a mountainside in Turkey can learn from the best minds on earth and that’s not science fiction. It’s right now.

“For 5,000 years, we humans have dreamed of working miracles and now, we’re on the verge of breakthroughs that can help us do all of that—and more. But in my view, here’s the catch - AI isn’t the ‘what,’ it’s the ‘how.’ It’s a tool. A powerful, extraordinary tool. But like all tools, what matters most is the hand that wields it and the heart that guides it.

“As my favorite poet, Rumi said, ‘Don’t you know yet - it is your light that lights the world.’ Because while AI can generate a poem, it can’t feel the heartbreak. It can design a product, but it can’t feel the purpose. It can answer a question, but it can never replace a hug from a friend or the laugh you shared at midnight during finals week, or the pride your parents feel right now as they look at you in that cap and gown.

“The truth is, the most powerful technology in the world is still the human soul, which is deeper and more resilient than any machine will ever be. So, when I think of AI, graduates, there are two things I would say. One - I am glad I’m not you. More importantly, two - I’m glad that you are you. Because you are the strongest, most resilient generation in history. You are the most connected, most globally aware, most adaptable generation in history. You’ve grown up in a world of rapid change and instead of running from it, you’ve adapted to it. You’re not afraid to learn something new. You’re not afraid to change your mind. And you know that sometimes the best plan is no plan - just a willingness to keep moving forward.

“I’ve seen this first-hand at Chobani. When I started the company, everyone thought I was crazy. I knew nothing about business. I had never run a factory and I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. But after meeting the people of this community, I had this feeling in my gut that we could do something different. And what made it possible weren’t just machines or markets. It was a team of passionate, hard-working people, some of them refugees and immigrants like me, who believed that food could bring people together, that business could be about more than profit, that community still matters. And we made it happen, not because we had all the answers, but because we weren’t afraid to ask better questions and to keep trying until we succeeded.

“So, to the Class of 2025 - here’s my advice for succeeding in the Age of Anxiety. Be adaptable. Be curious. Be kind. Double down on the things that make you most human - your curiosity, your imagination, your ethics, your storytelling, your sense of justice, your ability to love, to care, to connect. You don’t have to have everything figured out today. As a matter of fact, the worst thing you can do is have everything figured out. Until I found that old factory, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but here I am. Who knows when or where you will find your old factory. But when that day comes, when you decide what you want to do with your life, I want you to know that you have everything you need right inside of you to walk into that change, face it, and Fear Forward and come out stronger on the other side. You carry all you need inside of you. Use your Utica education to lift someone else up, to build something better, to remind the world that humanity at its best is still unbeatable. Be a voice. Take that chance. Change the world or just change someone’s day. Both matter.

“And just remember - we are living in one of the most incredible moments to be alive. Congratulations, Class of 2025. I can’t wait to see what you do next.”

For his dedicated accomplishments, his contributions to the central New York region, his efforts to reduce food insecurity, and his leadership in welcoming refugees and providing them with meaningful work, Utica University was proud to award Mr. Hamdi Ulukaya an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.