D. J. STAVROPOULOS

BIO

The Story

Where to begin? I guess we'll consider this his obituary so that when he dies, someone can just copy & paste! Born and raised in Springfield, MA. Educated at Syracuse University (BS in computer science) and later New York University (MBA in finance). Worked on Wall Street for a decade at J. P Morgan before it merged with Chase. Escaped to Atlanta in 1996 and lived happily every after. After layoff number two (2017), dove into real estate. He had originally planned to study architecture at Syracuse after watching far too much "Brady Bunch" growing up. Doing what Mike did looked fascinating, but D. J. was shocked to discover that he could study and take exams; write papers; and take AP classes and be a straight-A student. But he could not succesfully pull all-nighters in a studio and force creativity. Within three months, he concluded that he wasn't going to spend five years in a weed-out program. By the next year, he had explored computer science and transferred to Syracuse's School of Computer Science.

The options after graduation were endless. He could use his degree in any industry since everyone uses computers. He landed on two choices: IBM in the burbs of New York State or J. P. Morgan on Wall Street. He thought that IBM would be a company "you retired at" so he didn't want to start there. On Wall Street, just riding the subway to work was exciting for at least two years. Four years later, he opted to start graduate school part-time since JPM was paying. It was a crazy four years but no regrets. His attempt to relocate to San Francisco in 1997 failed due to lack of job opportunies an ultimate uneasiness with buying real estate on a fault line. He visited friends in Atlanta for the first time (the dreamland of the south), and relocated in April 1996.  After a short stint at a small consulting firm, he landed at IBM in a consulting group focused on the Lotus Notes product (just after IBM purchased Lotus). This was far too pidgeon-holed, so he looked for opportunites at a Big Six consulting firm and joined Andersen Consulting (subsequently renamed Accenture) in August 1998. Living and working in other cities Monday-Friday was a bit much after five years.

He took a six-month partially paid sabbatical (20% salary with full benefits) and traveled to Greece and Eastern Europe just after the events of 9/11.

Upon returning, he was laid off for the first time in March 2003. Bewildered, he wandered around for weeks in shock, not believing this had happened and very narrowly focused on getting another job in the rat race that had just vomited him up. Enjoying his early taste of retirement, he took a season job at Crate & Barrel at Perimeter Mall (no longer there) and was kept on as a Night Manager until January 2006, when the funds had run dry and he decided to accept another "real" job. Again, he has two choice: 1) a contract job with Pfizer in Connecticut (yuck), or a full-time gig with Target HQ in Minneapolis (wow). Once again, he let emotions & excitement drive his decision and spent the next four years in Minneapolis, enjoying the most amazing company spirit he'd ever seen. (In retrospect, J. P. Morgan was the stuffiest, elitist, and most controlling environment he'd ever worked in).  

There, D. J. met his husband, Cameron, who had planned to move to Chicago to study cosmetology at The Aveda Institute. But instead, he enrolled in their flagship school in Minneapolis and in August of 2008 relocated to D. J.'s house back in Georgia. D. J. was stuck in Minneapolis for 16 months while Cameron started his new career at Van Michael Salon. It all came back together in January 2010, when D. J. finally landed a job at Fiserv and moved back home.  Although he got lots of opportunites there managing a team in India and traveled there three times, the software industry felt a big geeky to him. He joined SunTrust (back to banking) in August 2013, and spent four years there rising through the Consumer PMO to ultimately become a Senior Vice President and worked as the Chief of Staff to the Consumer CTO (Chief Technology Officer) before being laid off (again) in May 2017.

This time, there was no dawdling around. He enrolled in a real estate pre-licensing class even before he'd left SunTrust, passed the state licensing exam the first time, and joined Keller Williams Metro Atlanta that July. The first two full years of real estate, 2018 and 2019, went well. D. J. loved running his own business, the creativity that he was afforded, and not being constrained by a 9-5 job. After 30+ years, he realized that you need to be you, not one person at the office and another outside of it (the real you). 

October 2019 brought a serendipitous fall into the world of background acting in Y'allywood (a moniker for Atlanta's rise as the Hollywood of the South).  This was in many ways even more exciting than real estate. And, come to think of it, as a child, he had wanted to be an actor before the Brady Bunch thing. Never in a million years did he imagine things would come full circle and that opportunities in acting would land in his lap. What better way to spend your day than pretending to be someone else (oh, wait, hadn't he already done that as a corporate robot?). Regardless, the roles in film & TV are much more varied. And you get to wear jeans and Blundstone boots every day. If you're lucky, sometimes a wig, a Dolce & Gabbana tux, and an earring to boot.