Mark Diaz

Mark Diaz is a longtime higher-education finance and operations leader with more than 25 years of experience spanning higher education, healthcare, and professional services. He is a double alumnus of the University of Miami, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting and a master's degree in professional accounting. Early in his career he worked as a manager at KPMG, focusing on healthcare.

Diaz spent roughly 18–19 years at the University of Miami in progressively senior budget, planning, and finance roles, including Executive Director of Medical Finance Operations and Budget; Associate Vice President for Budget and Planning; Vice President and Interim CFO of the Miller School of Medicine and UHealth; and, most recently, Vice President for Budget and Planning reporting to the Provost and Executive Vice President.

In 2018, then-GW President Thomas LeBlanc named Diaz Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of George Washington University, where he served as the university's chief operating, administrative, and finance officer. In that role he oversaw finance and budget, human resources, information technology, facilities and operations, risk management, safety and security, and GW's athletics and clinical enterprise. He led GW's finances through the COVID-19 pandemic and pursued an agenda of organizational optimization — expanding electronic security in residence halls, revamping employee onboarding, increasing tuition-remission benefits, and launching a university-wide culture assessment — though his tenure also drew tension with some faculty over cost-cutting and a more corporate operating style. He departed GW on June 30, 2022.

After GW, Diaz served briefly as Interim Executive Vice President for Business and Operations at The New School (roughly October–December 2024), appointed by Interim President Donna Shalala to stabilize the institution's budget deficit and realign operational resources toward its academic mission.

• No investment thesis on record. Mark Diaz's professional focus is institutional finance and operations, not startup or angel investing. His stated passion, in his own words, is *"organizational assessment and making things better"* — process optimization and resource optimization within large institutions rather than deploying capital into companies.
• He has framed his approach around institutional culture and efficiency: *"Culture is not simply a customer service thing… GW has resources and it's a matter of optimizing them to grow."*
• No check size, target-company profile, or venture/seed sector focus could be verified, because no evidence of angel or venture activity exists.