Julia Gropper’s second act: Making the leap from ballet to business

For a ballet dancer and instructor, Julia Gropper is making the leap to her MBA with all the grace and skill you’d expect.

While a “typical” MBA student of the past might have had a business degree and corporate work experience, students in today’s Ted Rogers MBA program come from a range of academic and professional backgrounds, like Gropper.

Gropper performed in both classical ballet and musical theatre productions in Germany for many years, including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Cinderella and Cats, with DanceCentre’s top pre-professional company. She came to Canada 11 years ago to take the Teacher Training Program at Canada’s National Ballet School.

Like any professional dancer, Gropper knew that she would have to transition into a new career at a certain point in time. After nearly a decade of teaching ballet and barre fitness to children, teenagers and adults at different levels, Gropper started to transition to a new career in retail management as the general Store Manager at a busy dance store in Toronto. 

“My work as a business manager at the dance store fuelled my passion and keen interest for Sales/Management and Marketing,” says Gropper. “In order to fully transition into roles outside of the dance world, I needed to invest in formal and in-depth education to expand my current knowledge and to advance into more senior management positions.”

Gropper, who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and Psychology, decided to pursue an MBA at the Ted Rogers School of Management since one of her interests is in Sport Business, which the Ted Rogers MBA program has a focus in.

“The small class sizes and more personal experience at the Ted Rogers School, along with the fact that the Ted Rogers MBA is known as one of the most collegial and collaborative MBA programs in Canada also influenced my decision,” Gropper explains. After starting with foundation courses in the spring, she is now a full-time student in the program.

After graduating, Gropper is interested pursing roles in Sport Business Marketing and Management and International Business and Sales. “As a recent immigrant to Canada, I would love to work with an international firm, preferably located in Europe, where I can also make use of my multilingual skills,” she says.  

As a professionally-trained dancer, there are many skills Gropper possesses that will be useful to her, both as an MBA student and in the business world. “Ballet has enabled me to be extremely detail-oriented, even under stressful situations,” she says. “As a dancer performing on stage, we are always under immense pressure to perform to our utmost potential in one moment because there are no ‘second chances.’ I have taken this attitude into all of my jobs outside of the dance world.”

“Ballet has also taught me about resilience and to not get discouraged by setbacks or perceived failures,” Gropper adds. “Dancers are used to constant critique by teachers, company directors and even audiences, but we use these critiques as a catalyst to learn from our mistakes and come back stronger and wiser.”