Finance, Story, and The Storm . . . with Christopher Zyda

Creative Innovators with Gigi Johnson

Question: What if you need to leave creative work to deal with crisis? How can you bring your creativity to other fields?

Guest: Christopher Zyda, Author; CEO, Mozaic LLC

In this episode, Christopher Zyda shares his journey through the 1980s AIDS pandemic as a young professional writer-to-be and his shift into finance to help care for his partner while dealing with insecurities and fears in launching a life. He tells of his choices to go to graduate school, his persistence and a kind person that got him into Disney finance, his Zelig-like choices of taking financial leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and a mortgage finance company, and his newer role of leading Mozaic, a financial investment firm. All of this work in finance still involved storytelling and learning everything he can. Chris tells the story of returning back to writing with his biography of his own AIDS-era journey with his new book “The Storm.”

About Chris

Christopher Zyda is the author of The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation.

Chris is also the CEO of Mozaic-LLC, an independent, privately-owned firm that focuses on wealth management, family office, and corporate advisory services. He has over 30 years of investment management and senior-level corporate finance experience at several high-profile growth companies including The Walt Disney Company, Amazon.com, and eBay.

Chris earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1989 with a concentration in Finance and achieved Beta Gamma Sigma honors. Chris also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of California Los Angeles in 1984.

Chris serves on the UCLA English department Board of Visitors, the advisory board for the LZ-Grace Warrior Retreat for special operations warrior veterans and Tier 1 first responders, and the advisory board for Veterans in Media and Entertainment.

In addition to investments and finance, Chris enjoys training in CrossFit and Olympic lifting, running, skiing, river rafting, playing the piano, and creative writing.

Links:

• Website: Czyda.com

Your Host: Gigi Johnson, EdD

I run transformative programs, speak/moderate, invest, advise, and produce multimedia on creativity and technology. I taught for 22 years at UCLA, where I ran the Center for Music Innovation and the podcast "Innovating Music," built four industry-connecting programs, and taught undergraduates, MBAs, and executives about disruption in creative industries. Before UCLA, I financed media M&A at Bank of America for ten years.

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