Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and Author of 'Delivering Happiness,' to Deliver Commencement Address at Kingsborough Community College

BROOKLYN, N.Y., June 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Dr. Regina Peruggi, president of Kingsborough Community College (KCC), today announced that Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of "Delivering Happiness," will deliver the commencement address at the college's 45th commencement ceremony.  Karen Stewart, radio personality and a 1988 Kingsborough alumna will be the alumni speaker. Leslie C. and Mark E. Sillcox, of the Tortora Sillcox Family Foundation, and Alison R. Bernstein, vice president of the Ford Foundation's Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program, will receive the President's Medal.  The graduation will be held on campus, 2001 Oriental Blvd, Brooklyn, NY, Friday, June 11, at 11 a.m.

In 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped Zappos grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazine's annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

"We are extraordinarily pleased and honored that Tony Hsieh, one of the most respected and successful business innovators in today's economy will deliver Kingsborough's commencement address," said Dr. Peruggi. "He has achieved phenomenal success through his commitment and unique approach to customer service and we are looking forward to him sharing some of the invaluable lessons he's learned with our eager commencement audience."

The Class of 2010 valedictorian is Sommer M. Goodman, a Texas native and a first-generation college graduate.  Ms. Goodman is an Honor/Phi Theta Kappa student with a perfect 4.00 GPA.  A speech pathology major, she plans to attend Brooklyn College.

KCC, one of the top ten community colleges in the country, is located on a 70-acre campus in Manhattan Beach, on the southern tip of Brooklyn.  It was founded in 1963 and serves approximately 30,000 students per year.  It offers a wide range of credit and non-credit courses in liberal arts and career education, as well as a number of specialized programs.  The campus overlooks three bodies of water:  Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  

SOURCE Kingsborough Community College