Stéphane Bancel is CEO of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna, known for its COVID-19 vaccine.

Bancel served as the 2023 commencement speaker at the University of Minnesota. He told the graduates, "If you surround yourself with mission-minded people, you will do great things.... What were the odds that a kid from Marseille, France, sitting in the 1995 University of Minnesota graduating class, would have the opportunity to build a company like Moderna?”