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WOMEN IN THE NEWS - GLOBAL orn in the U.S. to immigrants of Japanese and Korean descent, eresa had a globally diverse upbringing thanks to her father's career with the United Nations. As a child she lived in Germany and Lebanon, but considers beautiful Vienna, Austria her hometown. Today, eresa not only brings fascinating tales to the world in her role as literary agent, she herself has an amazing story to share. Aside from her multi-faceted heritage and childhood, she has had an unconventional journey to Park Literary & Media, her highly successful, boutique-style agency based in New York City. You have a degree from Harvard Law. How did that background lead you to where you are now? I didn't go to law school with the idea that I would be a litigator or a partner at a big firm. I went because I wasn't sure what to do with the rest of my life. And during my summers, when most people were doing internships at law firms, I ended up working with human rights organizations—in Uganda and later in Turkey. So I really had this sense that my interests would lead me abroad. But life is very unpredictable. I moved to Silicon Valley in the 90s to be close to where my mother was living because she was ill. It ended up being something that was really beneficial to me. It was an incredible learning experience, and many friends and mentors that I had while I was there are still important to me today. It was something of a detour for me, but it was a really interesting time to have been there. As valuable as that experience was, I didn't love being a lawyer. When my mother recovered and went back to work full-time, I felt I could leave and she would be ok. My then-boyfriend, and now-husband, had accepted a job in New York. We wanted to be together, so I moved with him figuring I could get a job somewhere. But I didn't want to go to a law firm. I wanted to do something different. I had been a Lit major so I thought maybe I could get into book publishing—about which I knew nothing. I moved there and started looking for anything related to writing, journalism or the arts. I looked into becoming a literary agent after reading a profile about a famous author. e Maturity is a process of moving from a dependency on others to dependency on yourself. " " B Theresa PARK Theresa Park walked away from a successful career in law to enter the competitive world of publishing on the ground floor. A twist of fate landed a Nicholas Sparks' manuscript on her desk and forever changed both their lives. 24 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com

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