Tech executive to speak at Commencement

St. Mark’s is proud to announce that Ali Rowghani ’91 will return to campus as the Commencement speaker for the Class of 2023.

After receiving St. Mark's Headmaster's Cup and earning his B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford University, Rowghani began a successful career in Silicon Valley. He served as CFO and senior vice president for strategic planning at Pixar and Disney Animation Studios from 2006-2010, where he oversaw the release of feature films including Frozen, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille.

Rowghani then spent nearly five years at Twitter and helped to grow it from a company with 100 employees to over 3,000 employees and over $2 billion in revenue. He began as Twitter's first chief financial officer in 2010 and became its chief operating officer in 2012, helping complete a successful IPO in November 2013. 

Most recently, Rowghani served as a managing director at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator that has helped some of the most successful tech startups, including Dropbox, Coinbase and Airbnb.

Ali has maintained close connections with St. Mark’s and feels deeply grateful for his teachers and experiences at 10600 Preston Road. During Alumni Weekend 2016, he sat down with Abhi Thummala ’16 for a special Upper School assembly. 
 
"St. Mark’s is, without a doubt, the most important thing I ever did in my life, in terms of preparing me for my future,” Rowghani told the Upper School students.

The Class of 2023 will celebrate its Commencement on the evening of Thursday, May 25, beginning at 8 p.m.
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    • Rowghani speaks to Upper School at Alumni Weekend 2016.

St. Mark’s School of Texas

10600 Preston Road
Dallas, Texas 75230
214-346-8000

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St. Mark’s School of Texas is a private, nonsectarian college-preparatory boys’ day school for students in grades 1 through 12, located in Dallas, Texas. St. Mark’s aims to prepare young men to assume leadership and responsibility in a competitive and changing world.

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