Life At and After Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management
Designation: Sr. Financial Analyst (Decision Support) at BCLC, Vancouver, Canada
What Mukesh has to say about himself, his goals, and dreams:
“I am trying to learn how finance can be a true business partner, by leveraging the relevant analytical tools. As data and analytics are changing the way the world operates, I feel it’s essential for a corporate finance executive to keep abreast of the latest analysis and analytics tools. My current goal is to keep up with the analytics pandemonium while leveraging the strengths in finance and business to my benefit.”
We asked Mukesh the following questions to understand how his experience at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management was. We also wanted to know how life shaped up post MBA. Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Questions:
1. Being able to follow your path to the right career is crucial. Who guided you? What motivated you?
Fellow MBA students from my previous company and friends from ISB gave me the necessary insights to choose the right career path. Motivation to pursue MBA stemmed from the desire to integrate finance with other functions of the business.
2. What do you see yourself doing 10 years down the line?
Leveraging the optimal Analytics tools of the day as a finance business partner.
3. Describe the most interesting lesson/experience in college that you have had till date.
Having a healthy discussion with fellow students and professors on topics ranging from business ethics to negotiation, and from corporate valuation to analytics. That’s priceless.
4. Can you share with us how your college experience shaped your personality?
Graduate school experience shapes one to approach a problem at work as a potential challenge that can be solved by understanding and collaborating with all the functions in the business. You get to connect the various dots that run any business, from a startup to a corporate behemoth. Some of the lessons can be easily applied to shape your career.
5. What advice would you like to give to other students/professionals who wish to boost their academic or career goals?
Having some sort of clarity on where you want to go after attending a business school will help students choose and customize their career path at school. There will be a plethora of options to choose from, and prioritizing and making the right choices during those two years will make the whole endeavor extremely worthwhile.
6. Your final word of advice (in one line):
You would’ve heard this more than once during the admission and recruiting process at a business school but the one key thing you need to focus on is networking. Your colleagues and peers at business school will form the core network you can contribute to and leverage for the rest of your career. Spend time contributing to your class teams, make friends at school and remember that the network you build triumphs the degree you get at the end of the term.
Check out our book – Break the MBA Code by Vibha Kagzi
