Commencement

2026 Keynote Speaker
Honorable Kimberly Driscoll
Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor

Kim Driscoll is the 73rd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was sworn in on January 5, 2023, joining Governor Maura Healey in an historic series of firsts: Governor Healey is the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person elected Governor of Massachusetts, and together, Healey and Driscoll are the first all-women executive team to lead Massachusetts.

Since taking office, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll has spearheaded several administration priorities and initiatives. Exemplified by her extensive and successful career in local government, Driscoll has served as a notable proponent for the economic development of Massachusetts cities and towns. She has awarded state leaders and organizations with grants geared toward improving their communities and has emphasized the administration’s commitment to direct investment in our cities and towns. This commitment also includes significant involvement with the state’s affordable housing development and improvements to the state’s public education policy.

Prior to taking office as Lieutenant Governor, Driscoll served as the City of Salem’s first woman Mayor. Elected in 2006, she turned deficits into record surpluses and saved taxpayers’ money by strengthening city services, revitalizing Salem’s downtown, leading a vast improvement in Salem’s k-12 schools, reforming city pensions and health insurance programs to protect employee benefits, bidding public contracts, and bringing transparency to City Hall. Under her leadership, Salem became one of the first communities in Massachusetts to adopt the expansion of free, high-quality early education opportunities starting at age four.

The daughter of a Navy chef from Lynn and an accountant’s assistant from Trinidad, Driscoll spent her childhood in a number of states, before attending Salem State University where she studied government and became a stand-out athlete on the women’s basketball team. Like so many Salem State students, she fell in love with Salem and made it her home after graduation, pursuing a career in municipal government, and married her college sweetheart, a second-generation union bricklayer.

After college, as the City of Beverly’s Community Development Director, Driscoll embarked on her long career of service to municipalities and eventually, went on to earn her law degree from the Massachusetts School of Law. Before becoming the Mayor of Salem, Driscoll served as the City of Chelsea’s Chief Legal Counsel and Deputy City Manager, and also served on the Salem City Council.

Lieutenant Governor Driscoll is focused on working with Governor Healey to create a forward-looking Commonwealth and communities that work for, empower, and include all who call Massachusetts home, as well as those who aspire to do so.