MBA Profile: Dana Gioia

See how one poet used his MBA for an unlikely career combining business and the arts.

Dana Gioia: The Poet and the MBA
By Amelia Gray

Though poets and financial stability may be an unlikely combination, Dana Gioia proves it’s possible. Money is no stranger to this Stanford MBA graduate; in fact, he writes poetry about it.

Money. You don’t know where it’s been,
but you put it where your mouth is.
And it talks.
(Gioia, “Money,” ll. 16-18)

Born to Italian and Mexican parents in 1950, Gioia was the first member of his family to attend college. After he received his BA from Stanford University, he earned an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard. “I originally went to graduate school in literature, but it seemed a bad place for me as a writer,” he recalls in an interview for Louisiana Review. “Working in business gave me a chance to construct a different sort of writing life-more private, independent, and contemplative.”

The Poet Goes Into Business

With his MBA, Gioia had the education and experience to join with General Foods in 1977. When he resigned fifteen years later, he was Vice President. “I went into business to be a poet,” he says. “I would work ten or twelve hours a day at the office, and then I tried to squeeze two or three hours of writing in each night at home. It wasn’t easy, but I managed-mostly by giving up other things.”

For Gioia, choosing a career in the business world meant effectively using his MBA, giving him the opportunity to earn enough money to focus more fully on his art. Leaving General Foods was in itself a business move; Gioia used his MBA training to calculate his worth and collateral to determine his next step.

The Businessman Goes Into Poetry

Gioia moved from the corporate business sector to his private studio in 1992. The MBA graduate-turned-businessman-turned-poet had a growing list of publications and a desire to further hone his craft. His poems, translations, reviews, and essays—including his famous 1991 essay “Can Poetry Matter?” —earned him more notoriety in the artistic world. His MBA training and business experience translated well to the world of marketing and self-promotion that is populist poetry.

But Gioia’s business story doesn’t end in an artist’s garret. In 2002, he was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as the Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts. Today, he combines art and business together, using his MBA to integrate profit into poetry and to bring the arts to a wider audience.

About the Author

Amelia Gray is a teacher and freelance writer in San Marcos, TX. Amelia earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Arizona State University.

Sources

Dana Gioia Online
“Money” by Dana Gioia

Posted on April 17, 2007 at 10:05 AM

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