Boardrooms to Classrooms: Corporate Professionals Turn to Teaching
Media of Ms. Farkas-Furniss and Ms. Zhang provided by Alejandro Izurieta ’25. Media of Mr. Klebnikov provided by Brain Reilly.
What makes someone leave a successful corporate career to become a teacher?
For Grace teachers who transitioned from the corporate field, the decision was not about leaving something behind; it was about going into a more meaningful job.
The educators, who excelled in the corporate world, brought their 9-to-5 energy to the classroom. Instead of valuing material success, they now appreciate their opportunity to inspire, educate, and connect with their students.
I decided to interview three of Grace’s top corporate transitioners to understand how the transition to higher education from large enterprises changed their philosophy.
Karen Zhang left her software engineering role at Meta, not due to being dissatisfied or burnt out, but because her passion for education burned brighter. Sammantha Farkas-Furniss, a star in an elite banking executive training program, found true fulfillment in helping students unlock their potential rather than generating Excel spreadsheets. After decades of delving into global finance, Michael Klebnikov realized he wanted to leave behind a legacy of teaching about life and learning, not a record of wins and losses in the stock market.
These career shifts are a look into our teachers’ hearts and lives but also a testament to the value and purpose teaching can provide.
In an industry where job hopping is the norm, Ms. Zhang’s career pivot stands out. After securing a coveted software engineering position at Facebook (now Meta), and going from summer internship to full-time, Ms. Zhang made the eyebrow-raising decision to leave her tech career without a backup plan. Always passionate about education, Ms. Zhang participated in teaching programs during her college years. Her journey came full circle when Lorry Perry, the head of the high school, as well as an old teacher from Ms. Zhang’s high school days, connected Ms. Zhang with a math teaching position. “People were really supportive,” Ms. Zhang recalls of her colleagues’ reactions. Ms. Zhang (Algebra 2/Trigonometry, Programming) is one of Grace’s most beloved teachers, and her story challenges the traditional narratives of success. She represents the age-old tale that sometimes the most fulfilling path is not the most predictable one.
Did you know that everyone’s favorite learning specialist and homework savior used to crush the world of Wall Street while working at HSBC (The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation)? Right after Ms. Farkas-Furniss started her career in finance, she was marked as the high performer we see her as now. She spent years traveling around the country helping businesses as a part of the HSBC executive training program before eventually being relocated to the company’s headquarters in Chicago, where she was promoted to an executive development role. After more than half a decade working in finance, she realized the job was not providing the personal fulfillment she desired. She felt that “85% of [my] life” was being consumed by working at the bank, leaving “15% for actually living.”
Despite her success in corporate banking, she ultimately decided that it didn’t “fill my life in the way I thought it would.” Ms. Farkas-Furniss originally went to Bank Street School of Education to teach but felt like it was not a career for her at the time. She had not thought about teaching for a while until a simple subway advertisement for the Teachers Fellows Program sparked a lightbulb moment. This time, she looked at teaching in a different light. While the transition from corporate to the classroom was challenging at first, she believes that she found her true calling. Now, Ms. Farkas-Furniss bubbles with enthusiasm: “I am pumped! I love what I do here, and I love helping students and working with their families.”
Before educating us about authoritarian leaders, world history, and philosophy, Mr. Klebnikov spent more than two decades as a powerhouse in the financial sector, primarily working in commercial and investment banking.
Straight out of business school, Mr. Klebnikov joined the then-Chase Manhattan Bank’s international institutional division. After four years of working in this position, Mr. Klebnikov became so interested in international banking that he used his vacation time to work as a consultant with the World Bank. His interest turned into a business that began at a pivotal time in history. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was the first time that Russia had a capital market, and companies were privatized with stocks being publicly traded. After another half-decade, Mr. Klebnikov moved back into corporate finance. Initially working for a small broker-dealer and later transitioning to a bigger German bank, it seemed as though Mr. Klebnikov would be in finance for the rest of his life.
That was until “one bright day, I picked up the phone and called Teachers College [Columbia University]… to find out when their programs might be open to get a teaching degree.” Coincidentally, it was the cutoff day to apply. So Mr. Klebnikov applied and got in, and the rest is history. While one might think a career-altering decision like this would not be as easy as it seemed to be for Mr. Klebnikov, it surprisingly was. His decision did not just occur in isolation; it was a collection of conscious and subconscious factors that led up to his phone call to Teachers College. “You’ll find that in your life some of the biggest decisions you’re going to make develop over time,” he said. “Sometimes you’re not even conscious of how they develop.”
Mr. Klebnikov’s decision to switch from finance to teaching was driven by three main reasons: disillusionment with the financial sector, becoming a parent, and a growing sense of purpose in education. As he explained: “When I was trading securities, it was like monopoly money … I became sort of disillusioned with the value that was attached in business to money.”
He felt that so much of his value was related to money. If he made more money than someone else, he was better than them in the banking world; if he made less money than them, he was less important. This was one factor in the career change.
As a parent with two young boys, one with a learning difference, interacting with his children created an interest in “how we as people make sense of things.” Why do humans remember telephone numbers by heart but not some random history date? Mr. Klebnikov believed that teaching could give him a better understanding and look at the science behind our brains.
The final reason that informed Mr. Klebnikov’s decision to switch was the famous maxim, “Those who can do and those who can’t teach.” A derogatory phrase saying that if you can not do anything else, you can become a teacher. But like the other teachers who have made a similar switch as Mr. Klebnikov, there was a calling to teach and value in trying to help young people understand their identity. He continued, “For me, that became sort of a mission. That’s what I attached value to… the ability to help, to guide, to support young people at a very vulnerable time in their lives.”
Today, Mr. Klebnikov holds his decision to switch career paths highly. When asked if he was fully happy with his decision, he responded with both confirmation and wisdom, “Absolutely,” he said. “I do not regret any decisions … I always encourage people to not be afraid to try a profession. Especially for Gen Zers, it is perfectly okay six months later to do something completely different.”
The stories of Ms. Zhang, Ms. Farkas-Furniss, and Mr. Klebnikov remind us that the most fulfilling careers are not always the ones that follow the most predictable paths. These teachers prove that true success is measured by the impact we make and the lives that we touch. Each of their career shifts was not just a random change they made, they were carefully crafted to find a purpose and passion. As you continue to learn in each of these teachers’ classrooms, remember that it is never too late to follow a new calling.
Sometimes, the most rewarding paths are the ones we least expect.
Caleb Lopata ‘26, the author, is a staff writer for The Grace Gazette.