Google Top Executive Ivy Ross Shares Path To Early Success To New Graduates

By Michael Zares | May 26, 2016 08:00 PM EDT

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Lisa Lockwood featured the Fashion Institute of Technology's May 19 commencement exercise in her April 28 article on WWD.com's Fashion Scoops announcing Google vice-president and Project Aura, Glass and Beyond Head Ivy Ross a keynote speaker along with Yahoo Style's Editor-in-chief Joey Zee.

Business Insider wrote up on Ross' speech at the FIT graduation on Ross' unusual path from an acclaimed jewelry designer for the world's foremost museums to her present post as an executive for tech industry giant Google; citing such ideas as  "there isn't an endgame. It's about the journey..", and telling the FIT graduates to avoid five-year plans due to the rapid pace of both the changes in industry and the rise of new opportunities.  

The Fashion Institute of Technology posted a video of the speech on YouTube where Ross, shared her unorthodox path to early success along with these guiding thoughts to the graduates:

1. "Don't let your ego determine your journey, keep it in check so that your heart could be the operating system of your life. There is no blue print for what you should be doing; Create your life as you live it."

2. "Keep asking questions that will shape the choices you make in your life. The questions you ask create the frame into which the answers will fall. "

3. "No matter what you do, keep playing; because the opposite of play is not work, its depression."

Intriguing thoughts which she summarizes in closing:

"If you fall in love with the process of not knowing and can enjoy the wonderment and the curiosity of it all, then you will fall in love with the process of your entire life. Do what you do for living, not for work, and never, never stop playing."

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