Mark Giragosian - (MBA 2022) - Introduction & Why HBS

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

My name is Mark Geragos, and I'm a second year E. C student here at Harvard Business School. Over the next few weeks, my fellow classmates and I will share a number of videos about how we chose to come to HBs what life is like here on campus and what our application processes were like. Today I wanted to take just a few minutes to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my background. Unlike most business school students, I did not go to college directly after graduating from high school. Instead, I postponed college to join the Joffrey Ballet as a professional ballet dancer, having been born in Maryland and raised in Virginia and never having even visited Chicago. This certainly was a leap of faith, but ultimately it was an incredible experience. I had the opportunity to perform in over 30 cities and perform in over 40 different ballet and contemporary dance productions. I got to be a part of classical ballets like a prodigal son and La Bayadere and I also got to be a part of numerous contemporary performances. After my first year in the company, I enrolled in city College and eventually transferred to Northwestern, where I completed my undergraduate degree in economics by my eighth year with the Joffrey Ballet. With my degree completed and my artistic career having reached its peak, I decided it was time for me to retire and begin a new career in a new industry. I chose a job in investment banking at Morgan Stanley because I knew that working with the team there would expose me to a variety of industries will also giving me good skills in terms of finance and accounting and also expose me to really smart, really hard working people. I also developed a passion for health care while I was at Morgan Stanley, and that led me to transition to a job in private equity at Linden Capital Partners, where I focused on health care investing. Aside from my professional life, my personal life has also been relatively busy. Almost eight years ago, I married my wife, Alexis, who was also a dancer at the Joffrey Ballet, and since then we've had two beautiful boys, Gabriel and Noah. So when we arrived on campus last year, we brought the full team and we're ready for a new adventure. As my wife and I considered going to business school, we ultimately chose to come to HBs for several reasons. First of all, I was incredibly impressed by the case study method. When I came to visit campus a year before I applied and got to witness it in person in the classroom, I knew the experience of learning about new businesses everyday, forming critical opinions and then voicing those opinions in front of a class of really diverse and intelligence students would be a transformational educational experience. My wife and I were also really impressed by the diverse student body here and large community of families at HBs. Since coming here, we've had the opportunity to engage with other families from all over the world and student led organizations like the Crimson Parents Club as well as Christian Fellowship. Actually, last year, my wife also taught a ballet class for the Children of other HBs students, and the community family is here regularly gets together for events like apple picking or pumpkin carvings around Halloween. Her older son, Gabriel, also goes to a local preschool, which he absolutely loves, and as a result, Harvard has really begun to feel like home for our family. We also saw Harvard's proximity to the biotech community in Boston, as well as the Boston based startup community as a huge plus. After my first year at business school here, I interned at a local startup that develops image analysis software for pathology and diagnostics. I've actually stayed on part time during my second year at HBs, and it's been an incredible opportunity for me to apply many of the things that I learned in my first year here around strategy, marketing and finance to real world situations. It's been an incredibly positive experience. I'll be following up in the coming weeks with additional videos around what life is like on campus what my application process was like and other valuable information. I really hope my perspective is helpful to you in your application process, and I look forward to helping you imagine what life could be like for you here at Harvard Business School.