World explorer

John F. Papazian ’81MBA has now spent more of his life working for companies based outside of the United States than in it. But he admits that he still owes his professional success to a homegrown property—Goizueta.

“Emory’s MBA gave me the tools and ticket to my current position,” he says. Papazian is managing director of DaimlerChrysler Services China Ltd. in Hong Kong, heading up lending, financing, and leasing for Mercedes Benz and Chrysler.

The interest in travel came naturally to the Tacoma, Wash., native. As the son of an Air Force officer, his family routinely moved about the United States. His father’s assignment as an exchange officer for the Royal Australian Air Force eventually took the family “down under.” By the time Papazian was a teen, the family had settled in Marietta, Ga.

After graduating from Emory in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Papazian satisfied his taste for adventure by traveling for eight months throughout Europe and the Middle East. Still without a clear career goal in mind, he worked in construction for three years, including a stint as a carpenter in Alaska. But, he says the hard and very cold reality of working outdoors eventually got to him.

“I became interested in business, but realized that I was lacking the educational background needed.”

His first position after graduating in 1981 was acting as finance director for the Cabbage Patch doll maker, Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc., based in Cleveland, Ga. From there, he served in management at two Marietta-based companies, Lockheed-Georgia and Dornier Medical Systems, before accepting the 1991 offer of CFO, and eventually president, for Dornier in Tokyo. “This was when I realized that I had achieved my ambition to have an international assignment,” he says.

When the company was sold in 1995, Papazian already had served for a year in the additional post of general representative with Dornier’s parent company, Daimler-Benz Aerospace. After management approached him about a move to Hong Kong to set up the company he currently heads, he says, “I expected it would be a significant challenge both professionally and culturally, which I gladly accepted.”

Life has come full circle for the former military kid, who is now raising his own family abroad. He even finds time to participate in the grueling Hong Kong Trailwalker 100km race. Racers work together in four-member teams. He says, “Finishing the race as a team in under twenty-four hours is a real challenge,” and his team has done so for the past two years.—Myra Thomas