When she was invited to speak at this year's Commencement, Busy Burr ’79 was delighted. "What a privilege it is to be invited back to Mount Ida to take part in this time-honored celebration of the seniors and their families," Busy says. "I am truly honored and thrilled, and can't wait to meet the Class of 2026!"

Our community will find inspiration in Busy's journey from Emma Willard School and throughout her unique and distinguished career.

Busy has brought heart-centered leadership, down-to-earth authenticity, a creative spirit, and bold ambition to her storied career addressing the challenges of enterprises—large and small, established and start-up, public, private, and non-profit. She has pioneered ideas that have become best practices in the retail, technology, banking, and healthcare industries. Importantly, she is known far and wide for her wicked sense of humor and infectious laugh.

In 1983, she graduated cum laude from Smith College with a degree in economics, and after two years as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in New York, she headed to California to earn an MBA from Stanford University. Following business school, she was one of a handful of Wall Street bankers pioneering investments in Silicon Valley technology. 

Busy soon took on retail branding and marketing leadership as VP of Global Brand Management at Gap, Inc., where she aligned product, communications, and merchandising across the four Gap brands around the world. She then fearlessly embarked on an adventure as founder and CEO of an apparel software start-up, which, while unsuccessful, brought breakthroughs to the mass customization industry. She was then brought on to be entrepreneur-in-residence at eBay where she led the design of a new social e-commerce platform. 

Busy was lured to Citigroup as the managing director and global head of Business Incubation, where she led the award-winning global digital transformation of Citi’s Private Bank. She applied her knowledge and experience in technology and client-centered design, creating the world’s first global, mobile, secure, private banking client experience. And she codified the process so it could be replicated, as the author of From Ideas to Impact, Citi’s playbook for executing innovation in a complex global enterprise.

She then journeyed to healthcare, joining Humana as a critical early hire in the company’s newly formed Innovation team, founding and leading the firm’s strategic investing practice, Humana Health Ventures. She built a world-class team and reputation in the space of a year—a remarkably short time—and was named to the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist that year, placing her among the top 100 corporate venture leaders in the world. 

Following Humana, she served as president and chief commercial officer of Carrot, Inc., an innovative behavioral health start-up. Busy was then asked to take the reins as the interim CEO of Rite Aid, on whose Board of Directors she was serving. Rite Aid was facing significant challenges, and Busy brought in top talent, stabilized the business, cut costs, implemented a growth strategy, and beat Wall Street earnings expectations, positioning the company for a critical financial restructuring- all in a short 10 months.

Currently a fellow at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute, Busy studies democratic polarization and the governance of AI. She has served on numerous public, private, and non-profit boards, including Satellite Healthcare, Summit Charter School, Mr. Cooper Inc, and Rite Aid Corporation, as well as the President’s Advisory Council of Smith College. She is also a long-time performing member of the Bay Area improv troupe Subject to Change. 

Busy raised two sons with her wife of 41 years, jumping into parenthood 30 years ago at a time when same-sex partners couldn’t legally marry and weren’t recognized as co-parents. Together, they challenged state laws and were pioneers in the fight for civil rights for gay people. 

In 2024, Busy received an Emma Willard School Career Achievement Award for leading with her head and her heart, and tenaciously advancing society through a career that has served and shaped the world.

Emma Willard School welcomes Busy back to campus as Commencement Speaker for the graduating Class of 2026 on Saturday, May 30.