Mark Stafford

“Have goals and ambitions in life but achieve them in the right way.”

When Mark Stafford joined Yarra in Year 7, he remembers his bright red school jumper standing out every morning as he waited to catch the bus or train.

“There was a keen group of us who wanted to wear the shorts through winter months - it was a badge of honour if you got through winter in shorts. But I remember the teachers reminding us quite often how to wear the school socks!” he says.

Lunchtimes were spent with a group of about forty friends playing backboard – you had to throw a tennis ball against the backboard of the basketball court and whoever caught it then had to throw the ball and hit the board from wherever they were. When you missed, you were eliminated.

Mark’s regular backboard sessions helped him hone his cricket skills and he played cricket and soccer for the school.

In the classroom, he was a ‘numbers man’ and after Yarra, he studied commerce before joining accounting firm, KPMG. He began in the auditing field and worked with clients including Credit Suisse where he has spent much of his career so far.

Promotions took Mark and his family to Singapore where he now leads a global finance department with staff in the UK, Switzerland, India and Poland.

But Mark remembers that he didn’t have a clear career plan mapped out when he was at high school. He says students today shouldn’t get too weighed down by subject choices in their senior years at Yarra.

“Pathways can change – some pathways take you directly where you want to go and some take you to the next step. There’s not a wrong decision or choice,” he says.

Similarly, he says there are always more opportunities to come if students don’t get the ATAR they expect.

“I wanted to do Commerce at University of Melbourne and I missed by one mark. So I went to Monash Uni and made good friends there and I went to Melbourne the next year,” he says.

Years after leaving the games of backboard at Yarra behind, Mark has many happy memories of his high school days – Saturday morning sport, soggy cheese and tomato sandwiches, watching his talented peers in school stage productions and scoring goals against rival schools on the soccer pitch.

“Students today are lucky to go to a school like Yarra. You have the best opportunities – don’t waste them,” he says.