Deeksha Machhral: Mckinsey & Co
Tell us a bit more about your career journey and how you ended up at McKinsey.
I started in an engineering undergrad in India and started working with the Washington DC government in the US for a while during my graduation. This is where I got my first taste of solving problems and working with organizations to find efficiencies and optimizations in the way they operate. This was also my first exposure to the corporate world, and I decided from there to go into consulting. Getting started, I wanted to go into a place where I would be able to see multiple industries and the work happening across different organizations, and so I started at EY as a risk consultant. My role with them was to help organizations determine what their risk strategy would be and then defining that in a way that could be automated into their IT infrastructure. It was an exciting time to work at EY, and I got exposed to myriads of industries. I’ve worked in CPG, automotive, and oil and gas, and the distinct characteristics of different industries excited me. My tipping point in getting my MBA was that I did not have exposure to financial processes. I completed my MBA at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto just a few months ago. Completing my MBA really gave me an interesting look into how businesses work, and I was able to take a lot of specialized courses such as M&A and private equity. I wanted to try my hands in the financial markets to see if that was a place I could call home, so I worked at CIBC Capital Markets over the summer. It was a fantastic journey. I worked with the Sustainable Finance team that brought my passion for sustainability and curiosity for the fixed income markets together. Although I had a fantastic experience at the firm, I feel like I still wanted to be at a place where I was working with different problem statements and not just one end goal. This is when I started looking for full-time opportunities to see what could really get me going, which ended in me landing a role at McKinsey. I am back in external consulting and loving the fact that there is so much to do and there are many different things I get to work with. I feel that is what excites me each morning!
What advice do you have for young women starting their career in finance or consulting?
There would be two pieces to it. Number one is don’t self-select out of an opportunity. I feel like as women we lean towards finding something that is an exact fit for how we think about things, but generally when you think about the business world, be it finance or consulting, you find some things that are going to work for you, make sense to you, and give you comfort, and there are going to be some things that are going to challenge you or be new to you. Say yes when given an opportunity, I always tell myself to just say yes and then figure the rest of it out later. When you say yes you are committed to something and are motivated to make it happen. So, my best advice is to not self-select out. There are tons of opportunities out there where you will be a great fit, so you want to keep hustling and finding those roles. If 60% of it makes sense to you, then go for it. If only 40% makes sense to you, maybe think about it, but I definitely see value in exploring things that do not make perfect sense to you, and they will eventually work out for you because you are continually trying to improve and revise the way you think about life.
Number two is to find your mentors and sponsors in the industry early. It is very critical to find people who have gone through a similar journey and understand what it is they have done that helped them get their foot in the door. I feel like mentorship is really underrated and undermined for its value. During school, it seems like the books, curriculum, and professors are going to help lead us into our careers later on, but it is very imperative that we find people in the industry who are going through a similar process because your perceptions and your experiences change the way you think about things, so you need to have insights early on from people who have already been through it. These are also people who will be able to vouch for you and raise their voices for you, so you need those sure leaders in the industry to keep pushing towards what you are looking for.
What is an essential lesson you have learned as a result of failure?
A lot of us think of failures as things we cannot do. I feel like this has changed a lot for me in the past few years when I was going through business school and in my consulting stint. The biggest learning for me from these failures is that I now see my mistakes as an area of opportunity, this is a window that I can get into to explore and see what I can do to grow myself professionally and personally. This change in perception is really important, and this is what has worked for me. Looking back to when I was in my earlier years of consulting, I would be extremely paranoid about the documents I would be submitting or the conversations I would be having with clients. If I had somehow messed it up, I felt there was no reversibility to it and I could not do anything to change that, and now I feel like that is not true. This was something I learned from one of my old clients. He was like “this building is not going to burn down if you make a mistake”. So, keep going, learn from this, see what you should not be doing going forward, and just move on. Do not overthink it or dwell on it. This is so critical. It is what keeps you sane, motivated, and positive about the impact you are having in any team you are a part of. You do not want to doubt yourself in what you are doing. Do not punish yourself unnecessarily.
What has been the most exciting part of your career?
When I was interviewing for McKinsey and I was prepping for the process, I really zoomed into why I wanted that role and what did I actually want to achieve in my career. Day in and day out I was doing a lot of case prep and was working with case buddies, working through problem statements and business challenges. Initially, it was just about getting my foot into the door and really trying to prepare for the interview, but as I went on to go through the process, it got me intrigued into areas of business that I hadn’t explored before like private equity or investment funds. Through repetition, this process really got me thinking creatively about how business challenges are solved in the real world. It was fundamental because now that I have joined McKinsey, I am still living by the same values and working in the same pattern. So, it was not actually interview prep that I was doing but I was actually preparing myself for the job. I feel like that has been the most exciting part. I shifted my approach from looking at it as interview prep to looking at it as “how can I make a real impact on these organizations”. This shift has been quite exciting for me. It has given me more energy. I think about these problem statements outside my work hours now. Even if I am going out for a walk, I try and look for opportunities where I can improve efficiencies. I highly recommend case prepping to everyone, even in positions that do not require case interviews. This skill helps structure your thought and make you a more impactful contributor.
What is your definition of a leader, and how has this changed over the course of your career? What qualities do you look for in an effective leader?
For me, when I was right out of undergrad, a leader was somebody who had a clear vision of where a team had to go, and they could explain to their team what their role would be in that journey. I also felt that leaders had to be very strong-willed people so they could keep the team together and focus on what had to be done. Over the years, this has changed dramatically just since I have worked on many diverse teams and learned different aspects of teaming. At this point, for me an effective leader is someone who identifies people’s motivations and strengths and finds a mix that helps them optimize their value system and still be able to achieve what the team needs to do. I still believe that a leader must have a vision, but I also think it’s not about being strong-willed; it’s about identifying opportunities within the team you are working with and creatively working through constraints. Looking forward, as I think about leaders, I think of people who are great mentors, people who are willing to help people grow, people who can identify leadership instincts in their team members, and people who have the courage to let others lead. I think you are only ever doing as good as the leaders you are building in your team, so for myself, if I was to look for a leader, I would find someone who has the courage and space to let me grow the way I want. This is important to me. As a woman, it is harder to find sponsors and mentors who are willing to do that, but I have found some incredible mentors in my life. As I keep finding leaders around me, the people who I really look up to are those that empower the people they are working with. There are two things to think about when you think of a leader. One is compassion - they need to know what their team is about and be compassionate towards them. Secondly, they need to have a compass, which is a moral value system that they live by and are not ready to compromise on.
How do you make room for yourself and ensure your voice is heard in conversations?
I am very grateful that I am generally always heard. I have been blessed that I have been in environments where people have valued that I have my own experiences. So I think it is important that I call out things that I do not agree with. I have always felt that I have an obligation to descent and defend my thoughts if I do not agree with something. I do know that not everyone has had that opportunity. I try to make room for people who I feel think a lot more before talking than I would, so essentially creating space for them. A good practice for how to be heard is to be very articulate in what you want to say and be very clear in why you want to put forth the idea. The team can collectively decide if there is merit to it. Additionally, sometimes it’s helpful to ask for time on the agenda to speak your thoughts if preparation is what it takes for you to speak up. It is also important to call out your motivations as to why you think a certain way and where you are coming from. Increasingly I have been leaning towards conversations with data. Having your data points ready explaining why you are saying what you are saying is also quite critical.. Another technique I have used in smaller groups is switching up who is leading the discussion, because then inadvertently, everyone gets a chance to focus on what their belief system is and how they want to organize team meetings. If you keep changing roles in the discussion, everyone will get a chance to speak their mind, and no one is left out. Long-winded way to say, find a way that works for you but definitely speak your mind!
Looking back, what has been your greatest learning to date, personally or professionally.
My biggest learning has been that whatever you do in life, is a sum total of what your experience has been so far. Anytime you talk to someone and explain what your experience has been, do not undermine the smaller nuances of your life. My main rule of thumb here is, whenever you are telling your story, imagine you are at a Ted Talk and there are 200 people in front of you. What is it that is going to leave a real impact on these people, what is going to touch their heart, what is it that is going to speak to them directly from your own life? That is what matters. It is about who you are as a person. It is not about the firms you have worked for, or the degrees you have - it is about who you are as a person. That could be a fifty thousand feet view of you in the city you have grown up in or an issue you tackled that no one else had the courage to do, or a thought you had that woke you up at night and you realized you were extremely passionate about. Your persona is a sum total of those smaller experiences, and you want to make sure you are never undermining them when you are speaking to others. Make your story very real - make your mess, your message!