Sanjana Krishnakumar

I definitely feel like I'm a highly motivated person, but I do have to say the people I'm surrounded by are also highly motivated as well. Seeing and working with people who have done really well in their careers has been incredible, and they've mentored me in such an amazing way. I definitely feel like that's an area that I can attribute my success to - the people I'm working with and the teams I've been with at my current company. Being surrounded by highly motivated individuals who have served as mentors has been a big part of my success.

I would say always be learning, even if you can do everything as a part of your job. I think it's very important that you're constantly either learning more about the industry, talking to new people, just growing and learning in a particular way, because it's very easy to get a job, learn everything you need to for that job responsibility, and then kind of plateau. Someone had once told me to continue to listen to podcasts, continue to read, continue to watch videos and learn more about the business. I think learning and continued learning is such an important part of career growth.

Because this job is so male-dominated with so few female mentors, I would say speak confidently. I think when I was younger, I would be worried or scared to say something during a meeting only to fear that I was saying the wrong thing or second-guessing myself. So I would say lead with your heart, lead with your brain, and speak up during meetings. I think that's really important. I think a lot of girls shy away from that just by second-guessing themselves, so I would definitely encourage young girls to take the seat at the table. You're there for a reason, so take advantage of that and leverage that, and put your best foot forward. Don't be scared to have an opinion and speak up during either meetings or client-facing interactions, or whatever it might be. I would definitely encourage young girls to be confident - you know everything that you should know, just make sure that you're saying it and speaking up.

I think being a good person is so important. Even when I lead a team, or if something's wrong in deal work, I always recognize that we're all human, we're all doing this for the first time, and so it's extremely important to be caring and lead with care, and lead with love. You never know what someone on the other side is going through, and so I'm always pretty much always thinking about that in the back of my head. I think that's a very important value to lead with.