Former Microsoft, Amazon Exec and Founder of Worldreader to Speak at May 14 Commencement

April 5, 2017

Chambersburg, Pa. — Entrepreneur and education access advocate David Risher will address the senior class at the 147th annual Wilson College commencement ceremony, to be held at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, May 14.

Risher is the president and cofounder of Worldreader, an international organization that works to expand literacy in the developing world. With headquarters in San Francisco and offices around the world, Worldreader works to transform literacy by giving children in developing countries virtually unlimited access to local digital books through Kindles and cell phones, even creating an app for cell phone use. The organization has supported over six million readers worldwide over its first seven years.

“Reading and education unlock our potential,” the organization states on its website, www.worldreader.org. “Worldreader is on a mission to create a world where everyone can be a reader.”

A voracious reader himself, Risher played pivotal roles at Microsoft and Amazon before co-founding Worldreader in 2010. At Microsoft, he was general manager in charge of developing the company’s first database product, Microsoft Access. He left Microsoft in 1997 to join Amazon as its first vice president of product and store development. Under his leadership, Amazon grew from a small digital bookstore to “the everything store,” expanding sales from $16 million to more than $4 billion. Risher later became a senior vice president for the company, overseeing the marketing and general management of Amazon’s retail operations.

Risher graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature. After working for a time for a consulting firm and then bicycling across the country, he entered the MBA program at Harvard Business School, moving to Seattle after graduation and joining Microsoft.

Risher has a Wilson College connection – his mother, Sarah Walker Risher, is a 1963 graduate of the college.

Risher is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a Microsoft Alumni Foundation Integral Fellow, and an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was named one of 12 Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2016. He has lived in or visited 47 countries, speaks four languages and lives in San Francisco with wife Jennifer and two daughters.

MEDIA CONTACT:    Cathy Mentzer, Manager of Media Relations
Phone: 717-262-2604
Email: cathy.mentzer@wilson.edu

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Founded in 1869, Wilson College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college offering bachelor’s degrees in 34 majors and master’s degrees in education, educational technology, special education, the humanities, accountancy, management, nursing, fine arts and healthcare management for sustainability. Wilson is committed to providing an affordable education that offers value to its students beyond graduation.
Located in Chambersburg, Pa., the college has a fall 2016 enrollment of 1,098, which includes students from 18 states and 16 countries. Visit www.wilson.edu for more information.