Her Story
About Pradnya
Pradnya Patil serves as Senior Quant Analytics Associate at JPMorgan Chase and Co., her fourth financial services company, where she has worked for more than 3.5 years. In this role she sits at the intersection of product, strategy, execution, and data teams to solve marketing and profitability questions using data and to deliver proactive reporting for stakeholders. Prior to JPMC she spent 2.5 years in data consulting in India and more than a year at Slalom, supporting clients in e-commerce, CPG, and nonprofit sectors. She earned an undergraduate degree in electronics from Wijut, one of the oldest engineering institutions in India, and later completed studies in business analytics at the University of Cincinnati. Among her achievements are Best Performer certificates at Cap Gemini, a quarterfinal placement in the Texas Instrument Innovation Challenge, and a top-50 finish with her team in the Smart India Hackathon.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Pradnya
01What do you attribute your success to?
It has definitely like the major contribution goes to my parents who gave me the freedom to think or to pursue anything that I want like they trusted in me so much so it has to be attributed to my parents. And I also give huge credits to my undergrad college where I met one of the best inspiring friends and peers who till this date inspired me to be the best version of myself.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice is let your dreams guide you not your fears. So this is from a book called Permission to Death which is from the same writer as Pursuit of Dreams I guess the famous movie Pursuit of Dreams.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I guess that there is no perfect role right and there is no perfect first step in this industry in this particular vertical. Get started wherever you can be. It's possible that you're not getting the role that you want but once you enter the industry the life can be very different. So for like you can start it professionally with a company or something on your own like there are so many websites where you can put build a your own portfolio. So go ahead figure out wherever you can access the good data and start building your portfolio and that will definitely take you somewhere.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
In my field I guess there's a great opportunity like with the rise of AI and given that you have like there are multiple opportunities I can see. First is bringing in AI multi-fold the speed of your work. But at the same time as a business somebody who works on Business Insights actively I see a huge huge scope of personalizing these insights. Previously I used to spend like more than 4 days to work on something. Here now I can make one agent understand what I'm doing and create the framework for an agent to think through and get the faster insights which basically redu- it does not mean that I'm going to go out of loop. My work is going to reduce to like from 4 days to 1 day probably with this. And if but the biggest bottleneck that can happen through this process is to not have a clean data.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For me the value that matters most is the being honest. Being honest to your work. Being honest to yourself. Basically that gives shows you the path for the future. If you keep lying to yourself probably you do not end up in the right spot and if you're not honest with your work. It is never going to give the satisfaction and at this point work is like 60% of your life so there's like no point in being like dishonest. Like whatever work comes your way do it 100% and if you are still unhappy figure out what you can do beyond that.
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