Graduation 2026: building the future, together
25 September 2026On Friday, September 18, Piazza Maggiore welcomed Bologna Business School Graduation 2026. In the heart of Bologna, graduates, Faculty, institutions, families, and friends came together to celebrate the completion of a journey.
The ceremony began with the entrance of the graduates, followed by the procession of the Faculty, Master Directors, and Associate Deans. The Rector’s procession brought the entrance to a close, led by Giovanni Molari, Rector of the University of Bologna, together with Romano Prodi, President of the Bologna Business School Steering Committee, Max Bergami, Executive President, Christiane Spitzmueller, Dean, and His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, guest of honor at the Graduation.
Following the European and Italian anthems, Matteo Lepore, Mayor of Bologna, welcomed the Community. His speech connected the history of the city with the responsibilities of those preparing to take on professional and managerial roles. Bologna, he recalled, is a city built on the encounter between cultures, on the value of rights, and on the ability of institutions and individuals to seek answers together to the challenges facing their community. This legacy also belongs to those who chose Bologna as the place to study and who, after completing their journey, will take what they have learned with them elsewhere.
Romano Prodi encouraged the graduates not to fear the changes that will accompany their professional lives. Artificial intelligence, the ecological transition, inequalities, and political and economic tensions are shaping a scenario in which managerial skills remain essential, but are not enough. Leaders must be able to listen to society, understand what it asks of organizations, and take responsibility for their decisions. “Now you have the task of turning your knowledge into decisions,” he reminded them, pointing to trust, collaboration, and integrity as the tools with which to face even the greatest moments of uncertainty.
The generational transition in the leadership of the School also emerged in the speeches by Max Bergami and Christiane Spitzmueller. Bergami reflected on the growth of the Community and the transformations reshaping education and management, starting with artificial intelligence. Spitzmueller, at her first Graduation as Dean, focused on the relationship with knowledge at a time when access to information is changing rapidly: what increasingly matters is not only what one knows, but what one is able to do with that knowledge, through judgment, curiosity, the ability to ask the right questions, and a willingness to challenge one’s own assumptions. The relationship with BBS, she reminded the graduates, continues beyond Graduation, through a Community called upon to take part in the conversations that will shape future transformations.
Graduation was also an opportunity to recognize the commitment of faculty members and participants through the Best Teacher and Best Student Awards 2026, before giving the floor to the voice of the class.
Giulia Avventurato, Co-chair of the BBS Students Council, brought the ceremony back to the everyday experience shared by the participants. In her account, the journey at BBS was not only about acquiring skills, completing project work, taking exams, and meeting deadlines. It was also shaped by relationships built outside the classroom, evenings spent together, discovering Bologna, and solving problems alongside people from different countries and backgrounds. A network that goes beyond professional contacts, rooted instead in shared experiences and in the ability to face complex moments together.
One question, however, marked one of the most meaningful moments of the evening: what is truly worth building?
It was Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa who posed this question to the graduates in his Commencement Speech. Starting from Jerusalem and the wounds of the Holy Land, the Patriarch brought to Piazza Maggiore a reflection on the responsibility that accompanies every choice when the future offers no guarantees. Skills allow people to prepare, anticipate, and reduce certain risks, but there will always remain a space of uncertainty in which each person is called upon to decide, taking responsibility for the consequences their actions may have on the lives of others.
From this perspective, building also means creating the conditions for others to live, choose, and begin again. It means taking care of something that, one day, may be entrusted to hands other than one’s own. “In the world that awaits you, there will be a need for people capable of putting their expertise at the service of a more human life for everyone,” Pizzaballa concluded, leaving the Class of 2026 with a question that will accompany them well beyond Piazza Maggiore.
Rector Giovanni Molari finally brought attention back to the very place where the ceremony was being held. Piazza Maggiore is the space where Bologna comes together, recognizes itself, and tells its story. Celebrating a Graduation here therefore means recognizing that education is not only about individual achievement: it is about the relationship between knowledge and society, between what each person has learned and what they will be able to give back to others.
Perhaps this is the thread that ran through Bologna Business School Graduation 2026. The diploma marks the conclusion of an educational experience, but what comes next depends on how skills, relationships, and responsibility become part of everyday decisions.
From Piazza Maggiore, the Class of 2026 moves forward with an open question and a Community that remains. Not only what future to imagine, but what to choose to build, for themselves and for others.
