MARK E. LEE is a graduate of the FEMBA Class of 2017. He serves as CEO of Halo Media Group in Los Angeles, the film and television production company that he founded in 2010. Lee manages and oversees the operations of the company, whose production budgets have reached up to $25 million. Previously, he served as a creative executive at both Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures.
Lee received his B.A. in archaeology and social anthropology from Harvard University, where he also served as team captain of the varsity fencing team and was a NCAA Division 1 finalist in the sport. Lee has always been a world traveler, interested in people and culture. Studying anthropology as an undergraduate, he learned the importance of a country’s culture and people. At Harvard, he traveled to 17 countries in 11 weeks, performing semi-professionally on six continents with his collegiate a cappella group. However, it was not until UCLA Anderson that Lee truly started to broaden his appreciation for the role of culture in economies and business and became very involved with the CGM both as a student pursuing the specialization in global management as well as giving back to the community that had given him so many great and memorable experiences.
The CGM was formative for Lee during his three years at UCLA Anderson. He was a mentee in the CGM mentor program, served on both the student advisory committee for the center and FEMBA student council, and traveled on five global immersion courses: as a student to Greece, Vietnam and South Africa and as a teaching assistant and program manager to Japan, Thailand and Myanmar. He also completed an independent study on Myanmar as the CGM was contemplating Myanmar as a global immersion destination. In Greece, he learned the causes and effects of great national debt; in Vietnam, he learned the challenges of setting up a remote manufacturing partnership; and in South Africa he witnessed the lasting impact of apartheid and studied what the country’s innovators and entrepreneurs are doing two decades after its fall. These moments of travel and learning will forever be iconic memories of Lee’s time and some of his greatest learning experiences at UCLA Anderson. He also shared his experiences at the recent CGM board meeting.
His GAP field study project was with Taggle Systems, a radio frequency company headquartered in Australia that designs and builds chips to monitor meters in the water utility industry. During the six-month project, he traveled to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to conduct extensive primary research to understand the feasibility of Taggle’s market entry into the United States. On campus, he enrolled in “Global Marketing Management” and “Global Macroeconomy” and attended many of the global conferences, policy forums and speaker events that the CGM offered.
The CGM is very grateful to Mark Lee for his involvement, commitment and support of the center during his three years at UCLA Anderson.