Andreas Stavropoulos and Chrysoula “Christy” Dosiou are steadfast advocates for the HBS Fund. The couple, who were high school sweethearts in their native Greece, see the flexible support that the Fund provides as key to the future of HBS—and the University more broadly.

The pair’s long-standing enthusiasm for Harvard began when they both attended Harvard College and then earned graduate degrees from the University. They even timed it so that they would graduate together— Dosiou received her MD in 1997 and Stavropoulos his MBA (as a Baker Scholar) that same year.

An Investment in R&D
While they’ve lived in California since graduation, their ties to Harvard remain strong. In addition to making gifts to Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, they have been annual donors to the HBS Fund for more than two decades—and members of the HBS Fund Investors Society, which recognizes leadership annual giving, for the past five years. “I see the HBS Fund as an investment in R&D,” says Stavropoulos, a member of the Alumni Board and a vice chair of the HBS Fund Council—a group of volunteer leaders advocating for the HBS Fund in a variety of ways to the broader alumni community. “The leverage and flexibility the School gets from the Fund is invaluable,” he adds. Fittingly, they are particularly inspired by the concept of One Harvard, as they believe that the best way to tackle society’s problems is to develop cross-functional solutions.

“Growing up in Greece in the 1980s, there were not many career opportunities,” says Stavropoulos, who appreciated the liberal arts education that Harvard offered. Although he enjoyed literature and writing, he pursued computer science (while his future wife studied biology) and then worked for a small Cambridge consulting firm before coming to HBS.

Impressed by the Harvard Community
Earning his MBA, he says, was “all I expected it to be and more.” His section experience was particularly meaningful. “I met people from all over the world with such varied experiences,” he says. “We had an extremely positive and supportive section,” he adds, noting that they set up a peer-tutoring program to help each other. “It was the highest-return academic setting I’ve ever been in.”

Dosiou, meanwhile, was in medical school, doing her rotations, getting little sleep, and occasionally attending events at HBS. While working to become a doctor made her “not a typical partner,” she enjoyed meeting her husband’s classmates and being introduced to the case method, both of which left a lasting imprint on her. “I’ve been impressed with the passion I see among HBS grads,” she says.

Today, Dosiou is an expert in endocrinology who serves as a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford, and Stavropoulos is a partner at Threshold Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that spun out of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). The parents of three children, they return regularly to Greece and also keep in close touch with their Harvard contacts, both in the Boston area and around the world.

Dosiou, who participated in a health care Executive Education program at HBS in January 2019, has found members of the Harvard community to be “very open-minded, eager to share knowledge, and interested in creating new things together.” This, the couple agrees, bodes well for the future. “The University’s influence will be even bigger over the coming decades,” says Stavropoulos, who is proud to be playing a part in this bright future.

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