Commencement Speaker 2025

Robert (Rob) K. Citrone ’87 is the founder and portfolio manager of Discovery Capital Management, an investment management firm. With over 30 years of experience in global investing, he has built a reputation as one of the financial industry’s most successful hedge fund managers.

Valedictorian of his graduating class, Rob graduated with a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude with majors in Economics and Mathematics. He launched his career in the fixed income trading group at First Boston, specializing in emerging market credit research. He earned his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. In 1990, Rob joined Fidelity Investments as a bond analyst. He later created Fidelity’s Emerging Market Fixed Income and Currency Group. He then spent four years at Tiger Management, working with legendary investor Julian Robertson Jr. as a managing director and head of global emerging markets investments before founding Discovery Capital Management in 1999. Widely respected for his perspectives on business, finance, and global affairs, Rob is an advisor to domestic and international business and government leaders.

Parents to four children, he and his wife, Cindy, are the second largest shareholders in the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.

A devoted alumnus and current trustee of Hampden-Sydney College, Rob attributes much of his career success to the College’s immersive learning environment. In 2020, he and Cindy made a transformative $6 million gift to launch Compass, the College's experiential learning initiative. Through the Citrone 33 Foundation, Rob and Cindy have become leaders in strategic philanthropy. Their initiatives include Play It Forward Pittsburgh, which united the city’s professional sports teams with hospitals and universities to register 1,200 new organ donors, and EMBRACE Pittsburgh, an initiative focused on mental wellness. The couple donated $2 million to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. They partner with the Milken Institute to maximize the impact of their philanthropic endeavors.

Baccalaureate Speaker

John Ragosta PhD, JD is a fellow at Virginia Humanities and previously was the Acting Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. He has taught law and history at the University of Virginia, George Washington University, and Hamilton, Oberlin, and Randolph Colleges. Dr. Ragosta’s most recent book – For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle – has received highly favorable reviews in the Wall Street Journal and New York Sun. He is also the author of Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed (UVA Press, 2013) and several other works. Ragosta, an award-winning author and frequent commentator, holds both a PhD and a JD from the University of Virginia. Before returning to academia, Dr. Ragosta was an international trade partner at Dewey Ballantine LLP where he represented clients before the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, U.S. courts, and administrative agencies. He is also a beekeeper.