In hindsight, Josh Marks thinks his college days were marked by a self-unawareness that kept him curious about a lot of things. After a handful of jobs that were good enough, that curiosity and a heap of happenstance led him to the business side of independent schools, where he's found an environment that feeds him in new ways.
Guest Josh Marks, Dartmouth ’96, remembers his college days as being marked by a self-unawareness and a happenstance that exposed him to interesting people, interesting extra-curriculars, and interesting academic pursuits. While it made for an enriching college experience, it didn’t set him up for an obvious path after graduation.
After a handful of jobs that were good enough, and one that paid that for an MBA, he was helping a friend look for a teaching job when serendipity struck again. Looking at jobs for his friend at his alma mater, the Hackley School, he saw an advertisement for a financial officer. He realized what he hadn’t loved about consulting was that he couldn’t see the outcomes of the process improvement suggestions. Within a school environment, he could make strides to improve processes and see the benefits. He also found a sense of community and a greater purpose in helping to transform the lives of young people.
On this episode, find out from Josh how the unexpected, and seeing things with new perspective, can provide unforeseen bonuses…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Josh Marks has spent over 15 years in business operations roles within the independent schools sector. He now serves as the Chief Financial Officer of LREI, The Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York City's Greenwich Village. He also still plays the bagpipes, serving as Dartmouth’s official piper, presiding over commencements and homecomings since our college days. Tune in for a special Roads Taken episode on June 9—25 years to the day of our graduation—to hear more about that and for a special treat from Piper Josh.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Josh Marks: There was a pay cut and it was a major life adjustment. And I did it and I've never looked back. I was just by random chance and luck that it was there. And it has been easily the best career. Yes, attendant with all of the major issues of working in an independent/private school.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: In hindsight, Josh Marks thinks his college days were marked by a self-unawareness that kept him curious about a lot of things. After a handful of jobs that were good enough, that curiosity and a heap of happenstance led him to the business side of independent schools, where he's found an environment that feeds him in new ways. Find out how the unexpected, and seeing things with new perspective, can provide unforseen bonuses on today's ROADS TAKEN with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
I'm here today with Josh Marks and we are going to talk about the expected and how it just seems to work sometimes. So welcome. Can't wait to hear this story from you, Josh.
JM: Thank you.
LJR: So I always ask the same questions of our guests and it starts a little bit early when we were at Dartmouth, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you were going to become?
JM: Oh, good Lord. That's a really good question. As current me looking back at who Josh Marks was in undergrad, there are just like a host of strung-together cringe-worthy moments of like, what was I doing or thinking . Or is it, was I thinking, I don't know. Like a lot of like frontal lobe that didn't develop. And like, you can recognize that you know, two and a half decades after the experience, but you know, when you're in it, you're like, oh, everything is saying is fine.
So I think I was a surprisingly, randomly driven, randomly lazy, seldom fully-informed, relatively-naive individual, just bouncing around campus. And, by a happenstance of a lot of luck in undergrad, met a lot of wonderful people because admissions does their job fairly well. I don't know how I got in, but everyone else is great.
And, you know, had some really good friends and had some really great extracurricular activities and academic pursuits and experiences and everything that, you know, the brochure, everything that you were sold in the brochure as a high school student. Right. But clearly, you know, when you look back in hindsight, you're like, wow, I knew so very little.
The magnitude of what I didn't know that I recognize now from that sort of weird fumbling, which was just so—innocent, isn't the right word—unaware, like the level of self-unawareness was pretty high and I enjoyed what I did genuinely. I like, I loved it and I loved the experience and got to graduation.
I think, again, it's sort of that blissful self-unawareness, all sorts of like snaps on graduation. And you're like, oh, Hmm, this is interesting.
LJR: Now what?
JM: Yeah, right. Like this seems like a really long stretch of time where things are not quite determinant. There, there isn't a guidebook. Is there a Dean's office? Nooo. Everything's just sort of open. It's like ha! And very shortly after graduation at, you know, sometime over the summer, there was that realization of like, oh my God, I'm out there with like everyone. Like, it's just, you're, you're in the sea of humanity and that is a, at times, wonderfully rich and diverse sea that is fascinating and is worth like a long scuba or snorkeling experience. It's sort of like magical. And at other points you're like, wow, I am swimming in the Pacific garbage patch. What is going on here?
LJR: With very little direction. So you jumped as we all did; some of us with more direction than others. How did you find that direction? At least in the short term.
JM: Immediately post graduation, no job in hand. I actually ended up in the summer painting houses for a month, which was money. Grueling, incredibly boring. I understand why there's a high rate of like alcohol consumption among professional house painters, because it is just incredibly boring work. If there were an industry to be automated by robots that would make things more humane, that would probably be one. I did that for a month, kept job hunting, through a network connection, got a position that was in fundraising at WSUV at Fordham. And that went for all of three or four months. And, you know, it was good work. It was an interesting environment, but I learned several things. I learned I liked systems and things work best, at least for me in my mind, when there's some sort of order out of chaos. I learned that I am a terrible fundraiser. And from there, there was a different position that opened up in a training program at Bear Stearns.
So I think it was almost two years at Bear Stearns in their training program, commuting from Westchester down to like Brooklyn an hour and 20 minutes, two subways. Lots of fun. So, you know, did that, moved on to Sanford Bernstein, which had an office downtown and they were moving my group to White Plains and I was still in Westchester. I was like, oh, this is great. So did that for a while, got into grad school part-time at NYU Stern. Transferred to Morgan Stanley Midtown because they had a tuition support program for graduate school. And I was told early on by those who had been in grad school, if there's any way to get anyone to fund your grad school studies other than you, highly recommended, very advantageous; you should do that.
Four years plus at Morgan Stanley through 9-11. So finish the MBA and did what most of our class did, you know, years before, coming out, which is I went into consulting and ended up in consulting for this little niche area of consulting: compensation consulting, where you have a consultancy that actually goes around and randomly gathered pay information from all sorts of private industries and then publishes that information, right, in an anonymous way. So you can see where you're paying your people compared to everyone else in the market. It really is interesting to see which positions pay what, where.
So a couple of years of that, and somewhere in that hopping among consultancies, because consultants tend to do that, a position came open at my high school alma mater, Hackley in Tarrytown. And I was looking for someone else for various jobs. I'm like, oh, you know, you're looking for a teaching job? Let me just scan the website of the schools that I know. And they had a position in their business office. And I was sort of struck with the attractiveness of being able to do the work, see changes or processes or programs implemented, but then also seeing like how that went in year two, instead of just—right, for consultants, a lot of the time…and this is now I'm a much more cynical person, two and a half decades after graduation—I know that a lot of times consultants are the perfect foil for a company where everyone knows exactly what the answer is, right? The answer is like these five people need to do their job better, or you need to stop doing this. But politically you can't have that conversation internally, organically within an organization. So you pay a lot of money to someone from outside who comes in and says, yeah, logically, this is what needs to happen. And you're going to be like, well, the consultant said, well, we really need to do this and aren’t they terrible? It's like, yay. We can blame a third party. Fantastic. But there was no follow through. Right?
So you did a project, you got the data, you returned the answers and then you moved on, right? Because kind of like a shark, a consultancy constantly needs to be like chewing through new booked work or the whole thing sort of falls apart. That is a very interesting track and did not appeal. And I wanted something that was a little more connected, in my mind it was, well, I could use all the presumed skills and knowledge that I gained in my MBA to do the work of business, but for a greater cause, right? A nonprofit education and it was a pay cut and it was a major life adjustment. And I did it, and I've never looked back. It was just by random chance and luck that it was there. And it has been easily the best career that I've had. This is now you're going into year 16 of being in this industry and you know yes, attendant with all of the major issues of working in an independent/ private school on the east coast, right?
There's issues of money, there's issues of privilege. There are issues of diversity. There's the fact that most schools do want to cue to an actual mission that is very noble and is very well-intentioned. And oftentimes that mission is like riding on a chassis of very gross business gears that are messy and greasy and need to turn. And, you know, trying to figure out how those two things come together without ripping each other apart at times is very challenging, right?
Because the right thing to do—morally, ethically, right?—sometimes butts up against the legal limits of what you can do as a corporation. Or as a fiduciary officer of a corporation, in your job, in your role.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. But the experience you had as an outside consultant that would come in and kind of be those eyes of this is all the stuff that you don't want to say that we see, these are the boundaries, the limits, the barriers, and here are some ways that you can either deal with it, decide not to deal with it and go a different tack. So all of those skills that you had, you're now putting inside of this organization and you come with this liberal arts background that makes you understand it's dicey, it's tricky, it's full of politics. It's full of ego. It's full of all kinds of things. So what have been those times when you're like, ah, they needed me and, you know, I can now recognize that I’m in the right place?
JM: Oh, geez, there are lots. So let me filter through to what I think might be the best or most germane. I would say for my industry—I can say my industry now, I think, after over a decade—what’s surprising in independent schools, especially those that are not Harvard Westlake, Sidwell friends, right? Horace, Mann, massive organizations…The smaller schools or the mid-sized schools still very much operate, you know, as their alumni might remember them from when they were students 20 years ago, which is both wonderful for community, but also a little frightening as a business. Because they're still operating like, I always, I often joke with families when they ask like, oh, can I pay my bill online? Not yet. Right. Or can I get a copy of my statement? Or we can PDF that and send that to you. I'm like, believe it or not, I'm trying to slowly drag the organization, kicking and screaming into the late 20th century of technology. You know, where things aren't all paper. Yeah. There are, those are the moments of looking at the school and trying to get the head of school, the trustees, other administrative colleagues to buy into. And this is harder if you're not an outside consultant, but you're actually day-to-day in there in your office.
The idea of there are ways that the rest of the world has advanced in business that make things more efficient. And it is a mistake to conflate that with, well, that's like the evils of like, high-paced, dog-eat-dog, chew through everyone business world that we live in, right? So it's like Bezos runs it and that's how it goes.
But there are also some benefits for it. It makes the interactions easier if it makes the hours that we have, the limited hours we have, especially as a nonprofit, more efficient. It gives back more hours to help support students and teachers, right? The two most important, I would argue, constituencies in my little community are: What are the students experiencing? How are the faculty helping guide those and shape those experiences? That's the crux of why we're there every day. If it isn't or someone believes it isn't then I'd be very open to hearing a counterpoint from someone. So getting to that point or making, helping people recognize what the changes are that can get us further along to that level of efficiency is sometimes incredibly challenging. Because a standard refrain for a lot of schools it's like, but we've done it this way since 18, blah, blah, blah. Why would we change? I'm like, yes, I know. I, I also know that there was a really great buggy whip company in New York City. It probably made the best buggy whips ever, and they probably still exist for like Central Park horse carriages. And I bet their business volume is like one one-millionth of what it was in 1875. So, true, but…or as we like to say “true, and”…this is where we are and we really need to try to keep pace; how do we do that?
And how do we do it in a way that is—and this makes it more challenging—correct and supportive of a school environment, not just a business environment. I mean, easier for a business environment that I could just turn to everyone and say like that, that's just the way it goes. Here's a new policy. End of story.
LJR: Yeah. But the interesting thing is, so you started at Hackley, your Alma mater, and then you move schools to someplace that one could argue has changed a lot of the way that education's done. And it's very progressive in lots of other ways. So talk about that. And then why do you really think the business part is lagging?
JM: So, yes, I moved from Hackney over to Little Red School House and Elizabeth Irwin High School, which is in the West Village. It is New York City's first progressive ed school. It was, it was when Irwin, the founder ran it as—believe it or not—probably (technically correct the best kind of correct), the first charter school within the New York City public school system, she actually got a charter from the public school system to open an alternative school. And it was, you know, based on Dewey and Irwin's work in progressive education, which really is to sum up quickly more student experience-centric than the classic “here's a teacher with a yard stick, beating you in lecture to pay attention to the facts that are being regurgitated on the board.” Right? This was more of a “you should learn by interacting with your peers and a teacher and the material and the city.” So they would take tons of field trips around the city.
Be like: I have a question about like the, where does their food come from? Right. So, okay. Let's go visit like the market and then let’s find out where a farm is. Let's go visit a farm. So sort of. Oh, very different approach. I like it. I think it's a unique and interesting approach. Like many independent schools, not every independent school program is going to fit every single student. If that were the case, we would have figured out this formula, right?, I'm pretty sure and standardized across the country. That's not true because as we all know by now, people learn in many different ways and you know, some facts that you are taught in lecture don't resonate until you do a YouTube video. And you're like, oh my God, that's what that means. Thank God for YouTube.
So that was a major change. It was the right time for me to leave at least difficult as it was. I loved that community. I still do. It is my Alma mater. So I'll keep in touch with many of my friends and colleagues from there, but it was the right move.
In terms of career, it was difficult. Every career move away from places that you love is sort of a gut check. And it has been incredibly illuminating for lack of a better word on a number of different fronts. And, you know, you could say yes in the center of the trend of “wokeness” (I will “quote, air quote” that) in the country, in terms of culture and society and where we are. LREI has been having those conversations for a very long time.
We are proceeding where we are today. So a lot of those conversations are not, I wouldn't say passe for our community but there is a different…If we're in a different evolution of where those conversations are, it doesn't mean that they're done well. I don't think we would claim that we do it perfectly. It doesn't mean it doesn't cause parent consternation. Absolutely does. We hear it all the time, but we've developed a lot of those conversations, so it's not brand new to it. Like just the other day we had a—because the world is the way it is. There are a number of times that our head has to send, you know, I can't believe he has to send this letter, but he sends it, which is, you know, I don't believe I have to send this letter again, but hate equals bad, right? Like, here's my push page. I'm saying this again. We've said it before. We all sort of assume in a civil society, the idea of even with divergent viewpoints on the political spectrum or within cultures and times that hate is not acceptable. Like that's not really a functioning way for a diverse group of humans to coexist.
So he sent that out and unbidden some parent of a lower school kid actually emailed back very kindly and said, I really appreciated your note because you know, a six year old and I were walking through Washington Square the other day, and NYU was having a graduation and some student had a BSU banner on her robes.
And my son asked, what does that mean? And so we stopped her to ask and she mentioned a black students’ union and he asked why would there be a black students union? I said, well, because, you know, he said, this is, I'm a parent of a child who's half Indian, half Chinese. Like we're both, you know, brown parents and we're from different backgrounds.
And he said, I feel like we had, I had this conversation with my six-year-old and I probably the parents that I didn't do it well, but I appreciate the fact that I was at least somewhat primed and prepared to have any conversation about this. From any grounding whatsoever. And I really appreciate that, you know, these are conversations that happen at the school, which is exactly like what we want to have happen. We know it won't be perfect, but we know it is important. And yeah, it's functionally, at least for our school, the belief that this is going to be an important skill set in addition to right. I see a lot of the complaints are on the other side of like, this is replacing critical thinking and classic education and no one will know how to think.
I don't think it's that “in place of,” I think it is “and also.” So to the critique that like, oh, kids aren't getting the education they used to because they don't read as many books and like they're not doing as much work, and there aren't as many school days. Okay. We're going to layer on a whole extra level of curriculum that requires more critical thinking and more engagement and more awareness of what you might not be thinking of.
And at least for me, and I'm not attached to the academic portion; I'm the gross business administrator. I just sort of, I chuckle a little bit when in parents at other independent schools are like, oh, this is indoctrination. And I, you know, I, I didn't sign up for this, but aren't you also the parents who constantly complain that there's not enough testing; that we don't do enough AP work; that your over-scheduled students, aren't being over-scheduled enough; that the teachers aren't sending home enough homework? Like we, you know, I'm not sure which it is. If it's critical thinking, then I don't see rationally where your objection is to us asking your students to think about perspectives that they may not have thought of before in their classwork for the momentary, like, oh, Well, that's interesting because stepping back to un-selfaware me and 94 95, going into the workplace, that would have been incredibly helpful. I think those consultancies actually ask for undergrads who are incredibly intellectually curious and will always think of the next possible option. The scenario that is. Not front of mind or in front of you or, oh my God. There might be a totally different explanation for why this issue occurs in this particular department.
LJR: But Josh, I think you're selling yourself short there. I mean, just because you were the, you looking back at you then sees someone who was self-unaware, that doesn't mean that you weren't inquisitive and have critical thinking skills and were maybe having to work doubly hard because that wasn't top of mind and you had to go, wait, what's happening here.
I don't really get it right. Definitely. Probably although it's really interesting because you know, the recent life as we're living it now has caused me to think back fondly and sometimes in like, Small Eureka moments. I won’t say Eureka. Small, like aha moments, two experiences I had at undergrad. Like there was a geography class where I just think they remember one of my classmates who was a woman of color myself came up and there was a large dialogue in class.
I think it was one of the geography classes on immigration, right? Like what kind of immigrants and who are they entering, bringing skills. And, you know, the immigration problem that has been in existence since I think I was brought into the country as an adoptee and continues to this day. So, you know, 47 years plus and well before that, and unfortunately I believe, well, after I'm gone, that problem will still exist in this country.
You know, it's sort of discussing like this, the, you know…yes, model minority is a terrible myth and you know, stereotypes and assumptions of what immigrant groups are are not helpful. And this is, you know, 94, 95 or 93 94, somewhere in that range. I just had this momentary thought of like, wow. Yeah, we had that conversation.
It was interesting. We stayed after class. We discussed it with the professor. Didn't really evolve into much more of a conversation. So I'd be curious now where that conversation and undergrad actually evolves too. I hope it evolves to something that's more engaging for everyone in the class, not just you know, two random kids of color who stayed after class to discuss this with a professor, but you know, it was a Dartmouth of our undergrad, which was an incredibly different time. I mean, these were the glory years of the peace dividend and Clinton before everything became weird. There are those moments where I look back and think we experienced a campus that was very different with a lot of imported assumptions from ourselves, you know, Westchester, New York adoptee to like friends I had from all over the country and all over the globe. And every so often I think back cause obviously there was a reunion that we should have had, or should be having, or we'll eventually have a, that will bring everyone back together. And our life paths that brought us there, what we shared, what we didn't share (which I think is more interesting) and sort of the randomness of what brought us to where we are today for the friends that I keep up with and where they are, some of whom have been guests on your very awesome podcast. And it's just the roads that everyone has sort of meander down by chance or by design have been super interesting. Every time I see anyone from our class and what they're doing, you know, my, my natural imposter syndrome reaction is, oh my God, everyone's doing such awesome stuff. I'm like, what am I doing? Running an audit for an independent school in west village and like signing checks.
LJR: Everyone thinks that! Everyone thinks, I mean, I don't know everyone, but I feel as though many people have been looking at our 25 years out going, gosh, you know, I haven't done anything cool. And then you start talking and it's all cool.
JM: The greatest, the moment of serendipity that I had was transferring industries and moving into independent education. I coached. I was an advisor. Both of those were fantastic. The best advice when I was hired on was actually from my seventh grade English teacher who would become the assistant head of school—that's the longevity of positions in the industry—who said, look, if you're gonna take this job to just do the business portion, don't you could do this for a company in the city for like three times the money like this, this isn't worth it for that. So if you're going to come here, do it for the right reasons, like go to a softball game or a baseball game, go to the play, go to the student art show, do something in the community. That's why we're here. I think that's a hundred percent true. To sort of digress very quickly: I was also director of financial aid for nine years. I think around my third year, I realized my bonus for that work, right—there's no real bonus to pay you money. It's not like Wall Street, the bonus for financially—is every so often and once in a blue moon, I would get an email from a parent that we have a kid that we'd accepted and supported. And it would just say we are so thrilled and so deeply appreciative of the school, supporting us to be able to make this a reality for our students. You've like fundamentally transformed our child's life.
The bonuses are when I get to coach. And one of my students, who's never fenced before fences and wins their first bout ever right after losing for almost all of the seats. That's my bonus. My bonus is being able to have that student come off the strip, come to me and be like, I won. I feel like, I know! We had a time out; you did everything right. I told you what to do. And you landed all those touches. It's great. Right? Like that's fantastic. Nothing can replace that. Having students graduate and say, I really appreciated everything that we did either fencing or if I were advising, like, that really meant a lot. Like I constantly think of that, like, yes.
And that has over the years come back, there are students that I've advised or coach to have now gone off into the world and are doing wonderful things. And it's still up to me, which is possibly the greatest, most flattering experience. I think that I could have is to just hear from former students say, Mr. Marks, this is what's going on. I wanted to let you know. I mean, that's exciting. That's fantastic.
LJR: Basically, you're saying, kind of the fundamental transformation of a child's future is what you landed yourself in almost by happenstance, looking for someone else's job. Looking back at that unaware kind of random undergrad Josh, what could you tell him now about where you have landed and the kind of experiences that you've had that would blow his mind?
JM: I’d say you'll find yourself at some point in a career that you deeply love ,warts and all, you will deeply love what you're doing every single day that you go to work. And I do. Good. I know the cliché: Find a job that you love; you'll never work again a day in your life. [Dismissive groan.] So I genuinely do enjoy what I do in a day-to-day, I do believe in the mission of the school. I believe that it's my job as the head of my department to make my colleagues' lives easier, not to make the work harder. You know, it's a wonderful place to be in a career. And yeah, there are days that like, I tear my hair out.
LJR: Let me ask it like a little kind of similar question: Do you think you needed to do all of the other odd jobs from the house painting to the consulting to do your job and love your job now, the way you do, or could you have been told, like, this is actually the thing for you and jumped into it earlier?
Oh, great question. I think it's the first. I honestly do believe that the jobs that I had where I flamed out terribly. And there's like more than a handful of those. So I don't want to make it seem like, oh, Josh had this experience where like he was house painting and went to like non-profit and went to financial service, got an MBA. And then magically after consulting found his way into like his dream job. That, that was definitely not the way it happened. There were a number of jobs in between their instance of work in companies that were smaller, that I imminently was going to be fired from or got fired from know managers who styles completely clashed with how I learn as an individual and pick up skills and that just like you could tell that that road was not going anywhere positive. Like at all. I have found myself on the losing end of those scenarios, like at least half a dozen times in my career. And I've always believed that I've learned way more about how I function well as a professional, as a potential leader, as a colleague from the experiences that were terrible than from when I was doing two or three years or three or four plus years, and a good team where I got along with everyone and we were doing good work and, you know, everything was sort of like day to day. You're just sort of rolling along and floating on this great tide that taught me things, but it didn't teach me nearly as much as the gross abject failures. Like when, you know, everything was just collapsing. It was just a terribly stressful experience. It really refines what's important to you. What's working. What's not. Why isn't it working. It makes you ask more questions. I wouldn't recommend it. I almost thought this was like a recommendation for like, Hey undergrads. When you get out, you should have like three or four experiences where you're going to get kids that'll help you or like, Ooh, really stressed. But I think that absolutely was necessary for me. Very necessary for me to appreciate what I had when I stumbled into it.
LJR: Yeah, well, you've been using a lot of water metaphors. I don't know if you've noticed that. And so I'm just going to say, it always seems like you're jumping in with both feet. And even if you have to kind of doggy paddle for a while or swim upstream, right. These waves have taken you in good places. And it's been a delight to hear that you're finally in a place that resonates with you and that you've been really enjoying. And so, thanks so much for sharing. We'd look forward to see where the tide takes you next.
JM: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
LJR: That was Josh Marks, who after a handful of years in banking found his way to the business side of independent schools. He now serves as chief financial officer at LREI, the Little Red School House and Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York City's Greenwich Village. He also still plays the bagpipes, serving his Dartmouth's official Piper, presiding over commencements and homecomings since our college days. Tune in for a special Roads Taken episode on June 9th, 25 years to the day after our graduation, to hear more about that and for a special treat from Piper Josh, I'm not suggesting you're lemmings or anything, but please do follow us at roadstakenshow.com or wherever you find your podcasts so you don't miss the extra with Josh or any other treats with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on the next episode of Roads Taken.