From Singapore to South Bend to Spangler

Liam Nelligan’s (MBA ‘27) trans-pacific path to HBS.

Born and raised in the western suburbs of Chicago, Liam Nelligan’s (MBA ‘27) early life was almost too quintessentially Irish Catholic. Born the fifth of seven children in a family with deep ties to the University of Notre Dame, he attended Catholic grade school before enrolling at Benet Academy, one of Chicagoland’s largest and most prominent Catholic high schools. A talented basketball player through his early adolescence, he found immediate success both in the classroom and on the court and began to envision an immediate future similar to those he’d seen within his family and network of friends.

All of this changed when his father’s job moved the family to Singapore between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. Rather than return to Benet with the friends and teammates he’d established the year prior, Nelligan, who, up to that point, didn’t even have a passport, moved across the world with his parents and two younger sisters. Predictably, he was less than enthused about having his life upended unexpectedly, as he’d made good friends during his freshman year and was beginning to feel comfortable as a student and athlete. At such a formative age, moving across town would have been difficult enough, but moving to a foreign country that neither he nor anyone in his immediate support system had any meaningful familiarity with was another challenge entirely.

Nevertheless, in the fall of 2011, Nelligan enrolled at the Singapore American School for his sophomore year and was surprised that it felt more like home than he’d anticipated. Most of the students at the school were American, and he quickly realized that, like him, “everyone there had moved from somewhere.” While things looked and felt different than they had in suburban Chicago, Nelligan joined the football, basketball, and baseball teams and quickly found a set of new communities. A member of the Interscholastic Association of South East Asian Schools (IASAS), his high school played local teams during the week but traveled to places like Taiwan and Malaysia for athletic tournaments, exposing Nelligan to parts of the world he’d never dreamed of visiting at such a young age. With the benefit of hindsight, he looks back very positively on his experience despite his initial skepticism. 

However, the life Nelligan had envisioned throughout his youth still beckoned. During their time in Singapore, his family had taken several extended trips back to the U.S., and throughout those visits, he began to toy with the idea of returning home to finish high school at Benet. The logistics of this weren’t immediately obvious since his father’s job was still in Singapore, which meant he’d need to find a place to live. Luckily, he was able to move in with his aunt and uncle, and in the fall of 2013, he returned to Benet to finish what he’d started. 

Upon arriving, it felt like no time had passed. Nelligan rejoined the basketball team and had an excellent season, losing the state title to a Jahlil Okafor-led Whitney Young team that had eliminated Jalen Brunson’s Stevenson squad earlier in the tournament. He had a strong campaign in his own right, averaging 12 points per game, which established him as a defensive specialist and earned him the Chicago Tribune Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors. However, the lack of exposure he’d received during his time in Singapore left him behind in the recruiting process, and the only legitimate college interest he received was from smaller, academically-oriented schools. He’d also already been accepted to Notre Dame, so ultimately, he decided to forgo his dreams of playing college hoops and follow his family ties to South Bend.

However, the fact that Nelligan was no longer playing competitively didn’t mean that he had to hang up his sneakers entirely. He quickly involved himself in the pickup basketball scene in South Bend, playing well enough in games around campus to earn occasional invites to scrimmage with the varsity team and win the top prize in Notre Dame’s legendary Bookstore Basketball tournament. Through this time, Nelligan admits that he’d always had the dream of joining the team as a walk-on. While his love of the game is what kept him on the court, it was word of his talent and his strong relationships with the coaching staff and members of the team that made his goal of joining the team appear more and more realistic towards the end of his junior year.

Complicating this was the internship Nelligan had secured at J.P. Morgan for that summer. He’d worked extremely hard to secure such a prestigious role and thus had to decline coaches’ mid-summer offer to return to campus. As he made his foray into the world of investment banking, he made a concerted effort to stay in shape, grabbing early-morning and late-night workouts at Planet Fitness and NYU’s recreational center. Managing a demanding professional life while trying to train from hundreds of miles away was challenging, but he was committed to chasing his dreams both on the court and in the professional world. He managed both successfully, and upon his return to campus, Coach Mike Brey informed Nelligan that he’d be joining the team full-time for the 2017-2018 season. 

Suddenly, he’d moved from intramural pickup courts to the Atlantic Coast Conference, one of college basketball’s most competitive leagues. And coming off a trip to the NCAA tournament the year before, expectations were high for the Irish. They started the season strong, winning the Maui Invitational and reaching a ranking of #5 nationally before a string of losses ultimately relegated them to the #1 overall seed in the NIT. Nelligan found a role immediately, appearing in spot duty across 12 games and recording points against Southeastern Louisiana and Hampton. He proved to be a valuable enough player that, after the season, the coaching staff asked if he was interested in sticking around for another year as a mentor for what was expected to be a younger team the following season. Faced with professional pressure once again, as he’d already accepted his return offer at J.P. Morgan, Nelligan found himself at a crossroads. Luckily, the head of the North American investment bank was a former collegiate athlete himself and gave his blessing for Nelligan to return to Notre Dame for his fifth and final year of eligibility.

With his degree in hand but his entry into the real world delayed, he made the most of his extra time on campus. He started the process of taking his CFA exams, found an internship with a local investment group, and tutored other student-athletes. The team struggled that year, posting a losing record, but Nelligan asserted himself as a leader while recording several unique career milestones, most notably earning a place in the starting lineup during the regular season home finale against Clemson.

Having finally exhausted his eligibility, Nelligan then moved to New York to begin his full-time career in banking. After three years, he transitioned to private equity, returning home to Chicago to work at GTCR. There, he crossed paths with several people with very positive experiences at business school. This planted the HBS seed in his head, and the more research he did, the more interested he became. On the court, in the classroom, and in the workplace, Nelligan has always sought to surround himself with “talented, motivated people,” so HBS was a natural fit. He has enjoyed his experience thus far, spending his first few weeks on campus connecting with his Section H classmates and “drinking from the firehose,” as anyone who’s experienced RC year can recall. 

As Nelligan reflects on his time as an athlete, he notes that he misses his relationships with his teammates more than anything but is confident that the experiences he had and the lessons he learned will stick with him forever. As he’s progressed through the early stages of his career, Nelligan believes that he’s taken the lessons he learned as a walk-on, including teamwork, checking his ego at the door, and finding ways to contribute beyond what’s asked of him directly, will be with him at every step. 

Though graduation is a long way off, Nelligan plans to return to GTCR when he finishes up in Boston. However, if his journey to now is any indicator, there may be a few more interesting stops along the way.

John Mahoney (MBA ’26) is a native of West Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2021 with a degree in Finance. While in college, he was a walk-on defensive back for the Fighting Irish and wrote a book about his experience, titled History Through The Headsets. Prior to coming to HBS, John worked in consulting and strategy in Minneapolis and Chicago.