HBS Professor | INSEAD MBA | Author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage

In this podcast you will learn 

1. Specific suggestions to transform negative perceptions, bias and adversity into competitive advantage 

2. How to make a super awkward meeting with Elon Musk into one of the most productive discussions

3. Unexplored nuances of gender and accent when it comes to promotion and career advancement 

Laura Huang is a Professor at Harvard Business School. She has spent her academic career studying interpersonal relationships and implicit bias in entrepreneurship and in the workplace. Her research has been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Nature, and she was named one of the 40 Best Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 by Poets & Quants. She is the author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, and the creator of the Princess Heroes book series for young girls.

Previously, she held positions in investment banking, consulting, and management, for organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services, and Johnson & Johnson. She received an MS and BSE in electrical engineering, both from Duke University, an MBA from INSEAD, and a PhD from the University of California, Irvine.

In this podcast you will learn:

1. Practical insights from the INSEAD MBA experience 

2. What is it actually like to work at Amazon 

3. How and when should you leave a job you love to do something you are passionate about

Radio broadcasting, advertising agencies, Google, Amazon,... Christian Schoepke's career path has almost as much variety as his latest product focus: donuts. He left the sexy world of film licensing at Amazon's Prime Video service in 2019, only to find himself in-midst of barrels of hot frying oil on a London street food market. Holding an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from INSEAD, Christian now combines his experience in marketing (agencies), negotiation (Amazon) and product development (own media company/Google/Amazon) to try himself on building a food brand, Little Didi's Donuts. Born in Germany, he moved to Canada at the age of 17. In 2002, he founded a Web-based agency with the world's largest roster of multi-lingual voiceover talent. In 2006, he co-founded a media production company that pioneered social media platforms and interactive video experiences. His work with Toronto agencies was featured on CNN, Buzzfeed and TechCrunch. And in-between the lines for when things didn't go as planned in his career, Christian dedicated himself to cleaning toilets and worked in construction.

In this podcast, Christian shares his journey that led him to make such a drastic life change, the shift in mindset required to move from a 'fun activity' to a 'business-building,' as well as how he approached risk in setting up his venture. 

In this podcast, you will learn:

1. Principles of career pivoting: fire-fighting to law to investing 

2. Actionable advice for cracking Harvard Business School MBA admissions

3. Art of reaching out and writing effectively 

Chia Jeng Yang 谢征阳 is a Principal at Saison Capital, a Japanese-backed fintech-focused fund (early-late stage, debt, fund of funds) that invests globally and in any vertical, but especially in emerging markets: Southeast Asia, India, LATAM, etc.

Previously, he was the 5th employee (Investment Manager/Country Launcher) for Antler, an early-stage VC/pre-team accelerator, and helped built Daraz, an e-commerce company that was acquired by Alibaba, in Pakistan/Sri Lanka for Rocket Internet. He is a consumer angel investor, with portfolio companies in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, London and the US, and founded Shaper Impact Capital, a global platform for impact dealflow and startup support, currently in 20 countries.

His educational background includes a law undergraduate from Cambridge, and a deferred Harvard MBA. His previous work and writing (including topics on consumer investing) has been featured by CNBC, e27, Yahoo!, TechinAsia, etc.

In this podcast, you can expect to learn:

1. What Stanford looks for in their MBA applicants and what distinguishes successful applications 

2. Framework for formulating career goals

3. Art of decision making and the importance of saying no

Rohan is a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to Stanford, Rohan was on secondment to the Government of India, working at the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. A chemical engineering graduate from BITS Pilani, Rohan worked with Accenture Strategy and volunteered with his university's startup network. He likes humor, running, and random trivia

In this Network Capital podcast, you can expect to learn the following:

1. The pros and cons of a career plan, especially a deep-dive on whether you need an overarching plan to succeed 

2. The principles of risk taking when it comes to career choices

3. The art of following curiosity with diligence and a sense of wonder 

Siddharth Jhawar works at Disney. He was a management consultant at Bain and a former Director at the Government of India, He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi, a CFA charter holder and Harvard Business School. You should also check out his standup comedy and his Harbus article "You Are Not Eligible: International Recruiting at HBS" - https://harbus.org/2017/23106/

In this podcast, we will learn about Pranav's path to Harvard Business School and explore why he decided to repivot his career after consulting, private equity and an MBA. 

Pranav is the Domain Architect and Vice President of the Large Scale Education Programmes at Educational Initiatives. He was a member of the development team of the Mindspark product, which is a technology-based, personalized and adaptive learning tool for Mathematics and Language. He led the operations of the Mindspark Centres in urban slums of Delhi and Mindspark’s subsequent deployment in government schools of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

At EI, Pranav has also overseen various large scale student assessments done in Bihar, Haryana and Tamil Nadu and was invited by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to be part of the RMSA’s Joint Review Mission. Pranav has spoken extensively on various panels in India and the USA on various subjects such as student assessments, educational technology, and the critical need for a ‘Science of Learning’ as a pre-requisite to ensure students learn with understanding.

Prior to EI, Pranav studied Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and and finished an MBA at the Harvard Business School, after working at Boston Consulting Group and GTI Private Equity in USA and India.

This is a very special podcast with Harvard Business School alums, Shruti and Azeez. Both of them met each other through debating at IIT Delhi. They have been inspiring and supporting each other to push the contours of excellence and impact ever since. 

Bindi works as the Deputy Director with the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University. Prior to that she worked with Tata Trusts leading their Grant Relationship Management and with the Piramal Foundation for Education Leadership as their program director for Technology. She graduated from Harvard Business School, with a focus in social enterprise. Her experience before HBS is with ArcelorMittal in the space of engineering and operations. She also has an engineering masters from the University of Michigan.

In this podcast, Azeez shares his journey to Harvard Business School and explains why he decided to come back to Pratham (one of India's most reputed non-profits) after graduation. Among other things we discuss career intelligence, diversity quotient and committing to solving problems over the long term. Take notes as you listen!

This is a bit about Azeez

Azeez Gupta is the National Head of Strategic Initiatives at Pratham, one of India's most reputed education non-profits impacting 5 million children annually. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and IIT Delhi, and was formerly a management consultant at McKinsey and Company. Azeez's responsibilities include scaling the digital learning initiative (reaching 100k children presently) and key organisational functions. Before his current role, he led Pratham's award-winning skills development program, providing livelihoods to 25,000 youth annually.

Azeez is a published opinion writer and speaker in prominent publications and institutions. He was selected as Education Innovation Fellow at the Harvard Institute for Learning and Teaching, and nominated to the Social Enterprise Initiative Advisory Board at HBS. Azeez is a recipient of the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship for social entrepreneurship at HBS and was awarded institute prizes for all-round excellence at IIT-Delhi. He is a social impact geek, voracious reader, and plays and follows multiple sports

Rich Horgan is the Founder and President of Cure Rare Disease. Rich is also a Blavatnik Fellow at Harvard Business School with a deep passion for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and other rare diseases. With a younger brother impacted by the disease, Rich has a strong interest in accelerating promising treatments for the disease. He formed a collaboration with world-class researchers and clinicians to pioneer the development of customized therapies for Duchenne and other rare diseases.  He also launched a company, Myofinity Biosciences, to focus on the commercialization of effective therapies for DMD and is working in collaboration with leading scientists in the field. Prior to making his foray into biotech, Rich had extensive experience working in new business development at Corning Incorporated where he led the successful launch of a new Willow® Glass product. He also launched a successful car washing business in upstate New York. He holds a BS from Cornell University where he graduated as summa cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

We encourage you to donate using this link: https://cureraredisease.org/support-us/one-time-donation/

Abhilasha is currently the VP of Strategy and Operations at Elucidata, a Delhi & Cambridge based startup, building an AI-enabled platform for the biopharma industry to enhance drug development. Prior to this, she worked at a strategy & innovation consulting firm, Innosight, advising Fortunate 100 clients in the healthcare sector. Earlier in her career, she was part of the founding team of Avanti Learning Centres, where she built and led teams across product and operations to deliver high-quality and affordable math and science programs across the country. 

She graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi.

In this podcast, she talks about the key inflection points in her career, journey to Harvard Business School and life after graduation. It is essential content for anyone thinking about business school and exploring how meaningful career choices are made.

Samar is an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School. His professional experience spans banking, film making and entrepreneurship.

He produced Nanak Shah Fakir (NSF), a first-of-its-kind film on the life and teachings of Guru Nanak, the

founder of the Sikh faith. NSF was awarded three National awards including the Best Feature Film on National Integration by the Hon’ble President of India. Samar has worked extensively with Academy award & Grammy award winners in producing NSF, which has been critically acclaimed worldwide including at the Cannes, Los Angeles and Toronto Film Festivals.

Post NSF, Samar co-founded Arteree, a startup at the intersection of entertainment, media & technology, focused on creating a global collaborative platform for the discovery & promotion of Indian performing arts and artists. Samar started his career in banking working with BNP Paribas, Barclays and Yes Bank before exploring the entrepreneurial path. He is a keen technology & new media enthusiast with a vision to pioneer community driven learning models spanning the arts, education and technology.

Aayush cracked 750 in his 4th GMAT attempt and made it to Columbia Business School. His journey to business school is one of grit and resilience coupled with clarity of thought. Hear from Aayush in his own words.

""I was born in Madhya Pradesh and grew up in a middle class home in Gurgaon. I went for high school to DPS Vasant Kunj (New Delhi) where my aptitude for Science and Mathematics led me to a formal education in Engineering. I graduated from Manipal Institute of Technology (Karnataka) in 2012, but since I was more interested in the business side of things, I ended up working in sales (B2B) at Philips from 2012-15. Here, I formulated and delivered on a two year business roadmap for a previously underperforming territory, resulting in 40% sales CAGR and 80% growth in market share. I absolutely loved my experience of stakeholder management and building new partnerships, but my passion for learning new disciplines brought me to Ashoka University where I studied Liberal Arts (Young India Fellowship), graduating in 2016. The Fellowship was the turning point of my life (both professionally and personally). As a part of the curriculum, I worked on a year-long project in rural India to uplift a low-cost school. By partnering with several education organizations to bring about a meaningful change in the school's curriculum, I learned how the private sector can play an equally significant role as the government in driving social change. This brought me to FSG (US based impact consulting firm) where I spearheaded the fundraising, marketing, and dissemination of a $16 million program to improve education in 300K low cost schools in India. Through pitching our program to 100+ funders and interacting with several key players in education, I learned about the challenges and opportunities in the Indian education system. Driven by my passion and experience of the transformative capacity of education, my ultimate goal is to start my own consulting firm that will help education based social enterprises in India address ecosystem barriers so that they can focus on affordable, quality education for low-income schools. I am currently headed to Columbia Business School for an MBA to hone my strategic thinking and problem solving skillset and to get a global perspective on the education space. Outside of professional setting, I am an avid fan of Tennis, which I enjoy both playing and watching. I have also been recently bitten by the travel bug, having traveled to 34 cities in 8 countries in the past 9 months."

This is the recording of the MBA panel with alums from Harvard Business School, Chicago Booth, INSEAD, LBS and Wharton. 

It covers the following:

1. What is an MBA and who is it for?

2. What is the right time to apply?

3. GMAT preparation strategy

4. Essay writing strategy 

5. Cracking the interview 

6. Thinking about life post MBA

Mishaal is a lawyer by profession and an entrepreneur by nature. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Plane Crazy, a full-service creative consulting agency, and the CEO and Founder of 405 Analytics that harnesses the full potential of data and uses analytics to boost revenues by providing valuable insights into markets and consumers. He is extremely interested in technology and currently leads the technology team at Plane Crazy with a focus on web development and augmented reality. In 2018, he was admitted to the Harvard Business School 2+2 program for the MBA program.

In this podcast, Mishaal shares how he cracked the HBS 2+2 MBA program. Listen carefully and make notes as he talks about GMAT, essays and interview preparation. You will also learn about the guiding principles of Mishaal's career, his entrepreneurial journey and vision for future.

In this podcast, two Columbia Business School alumni - Prateek and Neha, share their application strategy and demystify the MBA experience.