FinPod

Meeyeon (00:00)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Careers in Finance, the podcast where we explore the many paths that you can take into the world of finance. If you haven't listened to us before in this series, this is the series where we sit down with professionals from across the industry to hear their stories, lessons learned, and advice for building a successful career in finance.

So whether you're just starting out or making a transition or looking to just grow in your current role, this is where you're to find some great insights and inspiration from global citizens. I'm your host, Mion. You've probably heard me here before. I'm a VP of content here at CFI, and I'm really excited to be sitting here with Shubham Mittal today. Shubham is currently a financial analyst at McKinsey & Company, working with leaders and partners on

core finance strategies of the firm and FP M&A. Previously, Shubham's worked at Wells Fargo and had internships at JP Morgan, Dell Technologies, and Indian Oil Corp. And he, fun fact, loves to play chess and, as you can see from his recording equipment, likes building a welcome, Shubham.

Shubham Mittal (01:08)
Thank you so much, Meeyeon for having me on your podcast. It was super exciting. And thanks to Tim as well for having me, giving me this opportunity with you and the CFI platform as well. I enjoyed doing a podcast with Tim and let's do it with CFI as well.

Meeyeon (01:25)
Yeah, of course. So the question that I always love to lead off with is what sparked your interest in finance? Did you have a family member that worked in the industry? Did you have any just general aspirations from your own personal research? How'd you get started?

Shubham Mittal (01:43)
Good question. So ⁓ let me go back in past and tell you that my interest ⁓ in finance was typically from a normal background coming from a doctor's background. My family belonged to a doctor's background. So all my like my parents, my sister, everyone is a doctor, but no one believed I was also going to do like a degree in medical or a degree in maybe chemistry or physics or something.

But to be honest, ⁓ I chose this path ⁓ majorly because I was loved into doing mathematics. I in my 10th standard, I was scoring more than any other subjects. And in ⁓ India, we usually choose a subject from a particular, you can say background and then continue your studies after 10th standard. So you need to choose your subject and then continue it in your 11th and 10th standards as well. So I probably like the math a lot.

I liked other science subjects as well, but I was not that much great in chemistry and biology. So then ⁓ that process started of me doing the commerce background, taking that commerce skills and then giving that you can say exams and all. And my ⁓ love for finance also started in my B.Com honors as well, because once I was doing my B.Com honors from IP University,

I realized that yes, I need to learn more about it because I became so curious in the classes about like option pricing strategies, but for strategy and so and stuff. So ⁓ each and everything had a different way of thinking to it. And it was not a straightaway answer. And a kind of you can say finance is a byproduct of mathematics. Math is quite clear and you can say to the point, but finances, it's not clear sometimes and

finance takes you to different leaps and you need to understand a lot of stuff to get to the right points of ⁓ that particular goal which you are achieving. And so I chose that and even like during my MBA after my BCom honours I ⁓ went to do an MBA from Symbiosis and there as well we were given the opportunity to like choose from marketing, operations, but yet again I again chose finance as my main core ⁓

career skill for the second year. again, the reason becomes the same that ⁓ from day in day out, I used to like doing finance, used to like calculate things, I used to like fail in the models as well what I was building. So I was loved doing that. And that's how I became a finance person here.

Meeyeon (04:27)
And so that's, was, my next question was actually going to be during your undergrad, how you decided to pursue finance as your focus. But since you've already answered that, I guess my next question for you is during your undergraduate, ⁓ did you find any, that there were any particular mentors, whether it's through, you know, a student's association or a professor, ⁓ perhaps a class or a general. ⁓

early experience that confirmed for you that you were on the right path because coming from a family where I think that there is any, you know, generally like taken path. for example, you said that your family is largely in the medical industry as ⁓ doctors. It's, there must be so much pressure for you to continue that path forward. Not only because, you know,

generationally, so many people in your family are doing it, from a family of an immigrant background, that's a great path. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, like you should just stick to that path. ⁓ That's kind of the message that the family gets. So there's a lot of pressure there. And I think that's amazing that you've been able to be so strong-willed enough to say, you know, like, I'm going to do something different. This is something that I've really enjoyed. ⁓ But were there any moments, whether it's with mentors or classes, that really confirmed for you?

yeah, like this is the path for me.

Shubham Mittal (05:52)
So finance as a subject is ⁓ quite vast. And I knew that ⁓ after some time I might not be getting that much high hand holding from different people as well. So I started to mentor myself as well. I started to look out for ⁓ like different coaching materials and online. You can say courses ⁓ where ⁓ CFI also helped me a lot.

⁓ I didn't do ⁓ any particular ⁓ large amount of certifications with CFI had, but I had done it in 2021. Two certifications I did with CFI as well. And the way CFI teachers and the way ⁓ I have seen a lot of institutes teach as well is ⁓ actually makes you more you can say core into your subject. So

the way it's the basic way see all the subjects and everything is available on the internet everywhere. And nowadays people will do chat GPT and so on stuff. But it's actually the things which will retain in your mind and you will move forward with it and you will love to read it and learn it. I think that's that's where my journey started off taking up different courses and that includes CFI as well.

I used to learn your ratio courses. used to always download your ratio ratio analysis of finance and I used to take my take it with myself, always carry it with myself as a PDF and wherever I used to go for interviews and so and stuff for internships for I don't know how many internships and everywhere I used to take it, carry it with myself, revise it before the interviews and it was it was actually quite handy and to be honest, everything matters a lot. So

I could have done it from like a normal Google as well, but it helped me a lot. So thank you so much for that as well that you provided that platform as well. And yeah, so that's how that's how I got like the mentorship into finance from my teachers, my friends and yeah, from myself as well because you need to honestly build yourself if you're doing finance, you need to like learn to self learn as well.

Meeyeon (08:03)
Exactly. And it sounds like your university experience was a great time for personal development. You had a good conviction of what you knew you wanted to pursue long term in the future. But it's like, it's always so great to hear that someone meets the right mentors kind of at the right time, and it really helps set you up for success. So speaking of that, as you ⁓ built your foundation of professional experience, you did a lot of internships across a variety of different

companies, did ones in oil and gas, ⁓ corporate finance, investment banking. How did each of these experiences, ⁓ how did they shape your perspective ⁓ as you kind of did those internship experiences and then decided on a full time path?

Shubham Mittal (08:52)
Yeah, yeah. So I would say that internship ⁓ doing an internship is a very, very strong aspect to your overall career. And it's not only in finance, it's everywhere. People do not take it as a professional career path sometimes. But to be honest, that's your building block. Anywhere you go. In fact, my first job was ⁓ given on the basis of the internship, which I did in Dell Technologies. But I'll take you all through what I got it from all the internships as well.

So my first internship and my first tent was an Indian oil corporation. It was a normal audit job or a record to report job where I used to go to the offices. I used to see, okay, what all vendors does Indian oil have? I was blank. Like I didn't do anything practical in my life. I was just studying the formulas, ratios, everything. But this was the actual personal stint, which I had to do. And my first day was, ⁓

there was ⁓ my there was my lead and who was handling all the interns and he said that these are the vendors just take out something ⁓ interesting or just take out something how these vendors are working with us. So I used to work on them. I used to build reports on that. I used to majorly do the audit work there and it was nice. It was kind of boring as well in the initial days. But when I realized the impact this ⁓ boring work

actually is providing to different people and then those people are performing their analysis on that. Then I realized, it's actually boring, but at the same time, it's quite impactful. It actually told us at the end of the internship when I did my project with the journal manager of the company, ⁓ I actually showed him in my presentation that yes, this is the vendor which we are working. These are the vendors which we are working in directly with.

These are the things which we can increase their supply to give them more discounts do some other stuff as well and so and stuff So that gave me a different strategic perspective as well

So in the end of the internships when I actually did with Indian Oil, I presented my work and the project to the journal manager and it actually turned out to be very good and strategic in nature because it was not only finance and accounting, it actually told me what all numbers can actually do when you are sitting and building them, seeing how the vendors are performing, what all you can say, how much sales or business we are doing with them.

Similarly, I did with Siemens India, it was a technological side of an internship. was ⁓ more of everything involved accounting and finance, but this was more related to like the vendor support Siemens gives to different countries, the machines, the hardwares with Siemens have installed in different areas. What is the cost of it? What is the productivity analysis? So and stuff. And during this, these internships, ⁓ I was ⁓

not only like doing the internships, I was given the opportunity to learn more. I was whenever I used to stuck to get stuck anywhere because obviously I was an intern and people were way, far experienced than me. They had built very complex models. They were working on very, very much in depth analysis of what actually Siemens is doing and stuff. So I used to learn a lot from them as well. I used to see how they have learned how what else Excel skills they have learned. ⁓

from my to be honest, all my internships until the time all my work now as well. guess Excel is one of the major major aspects which I think all the finance people should excel like all the it's a jargon. It became a jargon or a phrase but Excel is one of the major things which everyone should in finance domain should learn a lot. Usually people underestimate it but it's your go to book.

everyone believes that you should know advanced level of Excel and you shouldn't know how to build models. And that's how like I think even CFI helps in this and other institutes also helps in this. But majorly one should focus on how to build models and that what I did. So in all my internships in Indian oil, Siemens, Dell Technologies, even in JP Morgan, the major part which I was working was on Excel.

And the rest of the part which I was working on was like Power BI, Dashboards, Tableau, but everything was linked as a base model with Excel. So if you come to the next internships talking about like Dell Technologies, I did a stint with Dell Technologies around like six weeks. It was a nice, ⁓ rigorous internship. It was a, you can say weekly program. We used to work with different teams per week. So it was quite new to me because I was once working with a sales team.

as a finance person, then I was working with the marketing team as a finance person, then I was working with the technology team as a so Dell has a quite ⁓ immersive as well as synergizing role where you are working with different teams as well as providing your you can say data sets and data insights. I majorly worked in Dell on power BI. Power BI was the go to tool. I learned the DAX coding on on it as well.

So basically it's it's it's type of a coding which we do one power BI just to build models and build more. You can say sophisticated charts and so and stuff. And in JP Morgan, it was a virtual internship since that till that time I COVID hit us. So ⁓ there was a lot of there was a lot of a crash in the job market as well in the initial days. So there was a lot of ⁓

going back and forth by different companies. People were not able to react to the situation. How it going? How was it going to happen? There was nothing like a virtual thing or virtual zoom, etc. Everyone was working from on office. So it was a hit for all the offices and all the companies as well. So I did it a virtual internship with JP Morgan, but that was also quite nice because it was a project based internship where I did

I learned about like ⁓ M&A, investment banking, what is the sell side, what is the buy side, how actually a deal performs and how actually investment banking.

Meeyeon (15:07)
Yeah, and this is actually what I was going

to ask you about because you have such a wide breadth of very complimentary experiences, particularly in when you're exploring these internships. When you were doing this JPMorgan virtual experience, you worked on M&A analysis and valuations. ⁓ And I think you were just going into it. But I was just wanted to marry all of these things together and ask you, what did you take away from that experience at JPMorgan? It's also during a very ⁓

very interesting time, especially with coronavirus that hasn't happened before in our lifetime. So I'd love to hear more about what you took away from that JPMorgan experience.

Shubham Mittal (15:43)
So honestly, ⁓ from that project itself, I learned how to actually navigate a financial model on the basis of like valuation stuff. I didn't do any valuations of you can say, FCFs or you can say other other M&A stuff I didn't do before that. I was able to practically do it. And that took the you can say the thing which I learned from that internship was

how to properly value make a valuation or a DCF model basically and that to perform practically because honestly now we can build a DC model on you can say paper or you can say an excel as well easily but to practically perform and get the stock price and get the exact valuation of that particular I don't remember the exact company I was given to work on with I think it was a random company which which they which it was not

exactly related to that particular name, but it was a company which was I think in Australia, which we need to do the valuations for. We did a DCF modeling. was not only DCF. It was then integrated with free crash, free cash flows and so on stuff. So, ⁓ yeah, I learned a lot. I actually, it was, it was so exciting. Like one, one thing which I also wanted to mention was that

This was the internship which got me to the final round of my final placements in MBA as well, because it helped me ⁓ crack those ⁓ questions and it helped me, you can say, ⁓ explicitly tell that what exactly I did because there are two subs, one is theoretical, is practical. So I was able to get the practical just from JP Morgan's internship.

Meeyeon (17:30)
And you briefly touched on this, but at Dell, you use a lot of power BI and automation to improve efficiency. What did you learn about the role of technology in finance during that?

Shubham Mittal (17:44)
Yes, yes. So technology and finance nowadays is quite important because ⁓ the and I learned it in Dell Technologies as well. But now in now times as well, when charge GPT and everything has come in, ⁓ if technology is properly put in with finance, it can be like synergized to a next level. And that I can, for example, in Dell Technologies, I build a dashboard which was, ⁓ you can say dynamic.

and any leader or a partner or a stakeholder can go into it, change the parameters which they want, see the report, download it and take it back. So you don't have to take it manually. You don't have to build models manually again and again, just according to the customizations of different leaders, different partners, different people who are doing it. Okay. So majorly you needed to do a ⁓ aspect which is more towards removing the redundancy.

And for that technology can be synergized with finance. Yes, you need traditional finance knowledge. You cannot miss that. But if you have that traditional finance knowledge with that, you synergize technology like power be in tablo. You can like reach out to different levels. So which which I did as well. And that I think report I was I was honestly given a pat on my back by my the person who I was working with. He was a leader in DEC del.

And he told me that I build quite a good, uh, probably a deck and he would use it for like a couple of months and six months and more, maybe to like, uh, for the reports and so on stuff.

Meeyeon (19:23)
So now in hindsight, and this is several years forward now, looking back, how do you find that these varied experiences, instead of ones that were concentrated on one very specific field, how do you think that variety helped you prepare for your full-time career?

Shubham Mittal (19:39)
Yeah, yeah. So it helped me a lot, to be honest. And in our ⁓ MBA course, we first year was we were taught all the subjects. So it was marketing operations, finance and strategy as well. And some something about HR and talent as well. So we were taught a whole holistic picture of what exactly an MBA could give you and a business works. Second year was your core studies, which was the choice of your subject. And I chose finance. And then the company started to come in.

Now these internships we were done and dusted by these internships. But actually when the interview happens, especially in a covert area where you had to do it virtually and everything, you cannot put that impact as you are ⁓ able to put it ⁓ on a person offline, right? Because you need to showcase yourself. You need to showcase my body language, how you are able to do that, how you are committed to that role and so on stuff. So that was a, that was a

major point aspect for like financial jobs at that time, because you need to then show your quantitative stint more higher on the higher side, and you need to show that you are ⁓ knowledgeable on the finance side as well. You are, you know everything and you know how to apply them as well. So and ⁓ maybe later on, I'll tell you my experience with the placements as well. But I will tell you the selection with Wells Fargo, how it happened.

So I sat for almost five to six hours. The interviews went with I ⁓ did cleared all the four rounds and in the second round the interviewer asked tell me about what all do you know how to build power beer dashboards? This was his actual question. And if you know how to build power beer dashboards then honestly like and can you show some power beer dashboards to me? So I told him that ⁓ yes, I can. I can maybe

If you if given the opportunity, I can build them and show it to you as well. So he was quite amazed by that. I ⁓ I usually ⁓ like do not ⁓ like reciprocate that much on the basis of what I've already done. But to be honest, for the placements, you need to showcase yourself as to how you're working and how you're building stuff. So I told that, yes, I know power be a lot. He asked me some DAX coding questions.

He asked me more about power beer. He asked me a lot, which I thankfully in Delhi learned and yeah, I cleared the second round as well. So I, the, this is how everything worked for me and this is how a lot of stuff worked for me. And I gave interviews for a lot of companies as well. I was not selected, but I learned from my failures because I gave interview for Morgan Stanley. I gave interview for JP Morgan. That's, that's a very different level story as well, which

gave me a very good experience to be honest, which I which we can cover later on as well. ⁓ I was not selected for JP Morgan Morgan Stanley. But then Wells Fargo came. It was it is the third largest bank in US and it got selected and I got a more ⁓ greater package and greater stuff greater. You can say benefits and Wells Fargo than I was given earlier as well. So it's a way in way situation for me. I sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.

Because finance as a subject, you know, if two experts or two students are, you can say, showing their knowledge, both are good, I would say no one can no one can like beat them and that stuff. But the way you will have that extra just to you or the way interviewer or your man, a hiring manager have differences for you is basically how what he wants in that role, right?

Maybe he wants someone who will be doing some other stuff which you might not be knowing. So that's why I didn't get disheartened many times when I was not selected. But I had many other opportunities for me in the plate where I was able to crack.

Meeyeon (23:39)
And going back just one step, what actually led you to pursue your MBA? Because oftentimes some people will just finish their undergraduate, get into a great company, whether it's JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and then just continue on if that's the path that they want to pursue, continue chipping away to becoming a managing director or partner. But ⁓ MBAs, first of all, they take a lot of time and money, but they end up being a great experience for people.

They come, people come in with all sorts of different intentions and motivations. I'm curious, what was your drive to go into your MBA?

Shubham Mittal (24:18)
Honestly, ⁓ I went for MBA for three things. And one was the most important thing, which was networking. I was surrounded by all the hardworking people around me. And I knew that if I study in that environment and do what they were doing as well and learn from them, I would get the opportunity to exactly showcase my exact skills. Because many times we have that capacity, we have that right skills, but

We don't show that potential in us. We don't take out that potential and that potential is only tested once you are put in that right competitive environment. ⁓ Once you are shown that this is where you stand and this is how you have to perform. And that's that's that's that's quite important. That's that is motivating as well for me. So I did an MBA because of networking. I did an MBA because of the faculty. So I loved to ⁓

I love the faculty experience. I, ⁓ you know, the way ⁓ the professor teaches you or the way your teacher guides you is the first steps in your career, right? No matter how much you learn from the books, no matter how much you see videos and so on stuff. Once you are able to see it from a teacher or a professor, you will able, you will be able to get the right gist of it that

what exactly they did, what was their experience, how our students passed and excelled in skills. And then you can continue to do those courses. So faculty experience, networking, and third part was ⁓ building my personality. ⁓ in BCom honors, were, I like, was knowing about commerce and finance, but I didn't know anything about business. I didn't know how a business is even started, how a company is registered.

I and these are very small things, but even still many people don't know many people who are pursuing stuff don't even know how to like start a startup or do something or build a website or something.

Meeyeon (26:17)
who are interested

in the entrepreneurship aspect of it as well.

Shubham Mittal (26:21)
Yeah. Yeah. So even if people are interested or even if people are not, but they should know, like, for example, they should know how the, how charge GPT was built. They know that charge. GPT is here, but we, we should at least study about the startups or the billion dollar companies as well, which have actually, actually scaled up a lot. And that, that you get to know from doing an MBA because you are taught strategy, you are taught operations.

You are taught supply chain. You are taught how a manufacturing is done because these are quite important jobs which we don't consider to be honest quite important, but they are which you are taught.

Meeyeon (26:59)
Now, ⁓ your current role at McKinsey is a financial analyst. What is being ⁓ your central lead, right? What does that involve? Like, tell us about the experience so far and what your day to day is like in this role.

Shubham Mittal (27:08)
Yes.

Yeah, so I got this opportunity ⁓ with Mackenzie ⁓ two years back after my stint with Wells Fargo and it was quite a nice role. It was more core finance role, which involved financial planning and analysis. And we and in my day to day life, I basically build a lot of reports and models which are ⁓ purely and coldly related to the leaders and partners which we work with.

we I work with firm data. So I majorly work how actually McKinsey is performing how actually McKinsey is doing ⁓ in different industries. Right. So I majorly manage their OPEC side or you can say operational expenses side and I usually do all the finances. So I started with technology finance. There's a domain called technology finance where I started to do my job. I did first year in technology finance.

I used to build reports, do the vendor analysis, see how actually the core business is working, ⁓ build stuff, do month-end reporting, ⁓ do QBRs with different leaders, see where we are standing, take decisions, help building them strategies, take important decisions which ⁓ will help overall the firm as a whole because operational expenses, the cost part is the major importance which we do.

revenue is also there. But if you are able to manage your cost efficiency, then you will be taken to the next step as well. And your profitability will increase. Many times people don't see this as like cost is a very, ⁓ you can say stuff which is given a leverage to be honest, not that much leverage, which revenue is given or profitability is given. But if you

correctly manage your cost if you correctly cut your cost and on the right aspects and if you're correctly efficiently managing your cost on different aspects then your profitability will increase fourfolds or maybe three times ⁓ as in you're doing so I majorly manage the central OPEX part and that's why I'm the central lead for it and I as a finance analyst I've thank you like McKinsey is a very very great company to be honest working with because it has a very fluid culture.

You can directly reach out to the leaders, directors ⁓ you you are given. So we believe in make your own Mackenzie. This is the term we go about. So in this there is no you are not guided much from your manager or a person. You have to build your own Mackenzie. You have to build your own stuff. You have to build your own reports. That's why you get some that responsibilities and ⁓ individual like

individual approach towards what you are doing. So you become more responsible and you become more you can say, you can say expert in building what you're doing. You get the handholding, you get a lot of stuff, but there is no micromanagement or there is no, you can say ⁓ goal based ⁓ tasks, which I do like a manager is saying, okay, should I do this and come back to me in the next 10 days? This is now how we work. So in McKinsey, it's a very

fluid ⁓ hierarchy which we work with and especially coming from a consulting side. It's quite interesting. have honestly in my three years I've worked with like technology side as well. I worked with Wells Fargo in the banking side and now working with consulting is a new type of an experience because you see so much of changes. You see every day a different project coming to you. So you learn a lot and it's quite ⁓ you can say challenging but interesting as well.

Meeyeon (31:03)
And so based off that, ⁓ based off all your combined experiences to date, and this might change for you in the future, what do you think are the most, if you were to say top three, ⁓ what do you think today are the top three most important skills for any aspiring finance professionals that are listening to this?

Shubham Mittal (31:24)
All right. So ⁓ I think like this is for me. It can be different for different people. But for me, the three things which I followed is learn, never shy away to learn. Okay. People sometimes shy away from learning new stuff, even from people learn from your juniors, learn from your seniors, learn from everyone. Take that knowledge, write it down and learn it because you don't have any other way. You will, you will see a lot of different stuff.

videos telling that you don't need to learn that you don't need to do that. No, you actually need to do a lot of stuff. And I think CFI and other platforms can help you in doing that. Because academic knowledge do get you that confidence to work in practical life. If you are not strong in your academic knowledge, if you're not strong in your you can say the base of finance, then you will not be happy enough to doing your job or you'll not like what you're doing because you know, do not know the impact what you what you're creating.

So always learn, always make a goal that you will learn something or the other day, either read a book or do some course or something and enjoy doing it and try to apply it in your daily life. That's one thing which I did. Secondly is ⁓ networking. ⁓ finance is a subject which is so quantitative and number based that you will always be sitting on your desk doing some stuff, doing a lot of stuff and investment banking. will be related to trading, sell side by side and

making deals, going through the structures and so on stuff in FP and a you will building reports. So it's quite quantitative and you can say quite a number oriented. So I would say in this scenario, whenever you are going, try to ⁓ like reach out to different people, try to know how they're actually working in different domains because often what happens is usually we are working in our domain, but we're not knowing what the treasury department is doing.

what the IB department is doing, what basically the M&A guys are doing. We don't know how actually the firm operates in and apps like I've seen a lot of people as well that they are working for like five to 10 years in the same organization. But if like they do not know how that organization works, so you need to know your organization and as well and that's how you will start loving that perspective of what you are doing. You are part of

different impact, which a whole holistic approach is being making. And that is presented to the leader. So one is I've already told you, learn a lot, learn everything different stuff. Second is networking. And third, I would say that do not like be scared of failing because ⁓ often I've seen students get a lot of and I've seen that. Yeah, there are people who have done a lot of like stuff. They have achieved a lot. They have become

CFOs, senior partners, leaders, and some, sometimes people are having middle life career crisis. Sometimes people like me also are having like, okay, what am I doing a right job? And I'm doing the right stuff. So don't be like, don't shy away from failing as well because failing teaches you a lot. Like I'll tell you my experience as well. I sat 12 hours for JP Morgan's interview and I was rejected in the last round, which was a soft skill round.

But, like I, and after that I was offered a lot of times. I caught a lot of times when I was in Wells Fargo. got a lot of times from Goldman Sachs calls from H.R.s from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, a lot of times to like join their companies as well. But I didn't go because I was liking my work in Wells Fargo as well. But that failure taught me that I, I got a lot of tensed in that preparation and I

learned from that failure that not all situations are to be taken as tense situations. You need to practice, you learn a lot. And then again, for the next round, the usual practice, I took the CFI PDF of ratios, I took different institutes things as well and prepared for my interview for Wells Fargo and I cracked it. so life will give you a lot of stuff failures and all but life cannot snatch away the skills which you have the story which you can build for yourself and

There are thanks to you guys as well that you have built in so much of knowledgeable aspects, so much of there is so much to learn that I don't know how can someone miss out, right? So finance is a very big, vast sea. And there is so much to learn that even today I feel that I don't know a lot of stuff. So I keep on learning. I may after our podcast learn more about like some courses on CFI and so on stuff. So we have three things which are majorly important for your life. One is learn, learn, learn.

Secondly, try to network a lot, try to know what other people are doing. And thirdly is to not shy away from failing. Fail, learn and move on and ⁓ you will surely succeed in life.

Meeyeon (36:24)
And I can't think of a better and more inspirational note to end off our podcast on. But before we close out, I want to give our audience a chance to get to know you, Shubham, the person apart from the professional. So I have some fun rapid fire questions for you. So Shubham, you're based in Delhi, India. If you were given the opportunity to travel to three destinations, all expenses paid, what are your three destinations that you'd want to go to today?

Shubham Mittal (36:41)
Okay.

My first would be New York. So it's my dream city to be honest. I have always like wanted to go there and I would love to go there and explore the Wall Street and every everything which is there. My second destination would be Switzerland. I loved to see the banking the way the banking industry works there. I have often seen that people and I love the culture there like I've seen the old places and palaces.

I love the way to live there. Like ⁓ it's quite a nice place to like go around, see and work as well. And I think the third place would be, I think, I don't know, like I have not thought of it, but the third place can be Las Vegas. If you are going for, yeah, if you are going for a break or something, but yeah, I would, I would love to go to these three places for sure. For sure.

Meeyeon (37:43)
That does it pretty please.

And Vegas has a lot of musical residencies. So these ones are, these ones are past now, but we have, you know, like Adele that's there, like Celine Dion. I guess what's at the backstreet? Kelly Clarkson, the Backstreet Boys do the thing at the Sphere. ⁓ what is your favorite musician or band, singer?

Shubham Mittal (38:03)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

So honestly, I don't listen a lot to like, ⁓ like sing different. I don't follow a particular singer, but yeah, my favorite, you can say I would say Coldplay it is because I love to hear their songs and their songs are quite, ⁓ you can say synergized with my work so I can listen to them anywhere anytime when I working or something driving and everywhere. that's how I don't follow them.

⁓ that much like I have not gone to any Coldplay concepts, but would love to somewhere go there as well. Yeah.

Meeyeon (38:49)
Last question, ⁓ I think that it would be hard to miss the fact that you're a big proponent of lifelong learning, whether it's the online platforms like CFI, traditional academic pursuits at educational institutions like universities, or just learning from those that are around you. Do you have a particular book or podcast or something that you've listened to recently that you recommend everyone go out and

listen to, grab a copy of right away.

Shubham Mittal (39:23)
Well, if it's a rapid fire, would say listen to my podcast, but yeah, I make a podcast on the YouTube, the prudent finance. can go there, grab a coffee and listen to other stuff as well. There I talk to leaders and all that stuff, but coming to a book, which I've come across recently and I've learned a lot is the book called the venture mindset. It's written by one of the professors, Stanford professors, Eli, and one of the senior advisors working in McKinsey as well.

Alex Dan, I had an interaction with Alex as well. And it's so nicely being written and each and every case is presented with how real life problems came in and how it was turned into a venture. For example, now we are talking virtually right in back in 2000 when zoom came up. ⁓ It was not shown because they were big giants like Cisco and all that stuff. So that book tells you how zooms founder that time came to

⁓ people on the venture side and those people actually got to know that zoom has that much potential and before covid and it was before covid you didn't know that ⁓ covid was used to going to happen or so and stuff right before covid no one believed that virtual platforms can do so much great and stuff but ⁓ yeah someone clicked it and you will get the ideas you will get how the people meet

how a single meeting can change your life, how a single talk with a founder or a leader can actually inspire you or inspire you to build something. So I would suggest that do read that book, The Venture Mindset. It's available, I think, on Kindle and Amazon both. And Professor Eli ⁓ gives a lot of stuff on LinkedIn as well. So you can follow him there as well. He is a Stanford professor and ⁓ he tries to post every day a lot of new stuff. And I like to go through it as well.

Meeyeon (41:18)
Shubham, thank you so much for sharing your career journey with us today from your early internships and your MBA and now your role at McKinsey. It's been really inspiring, I think, to hear about how you built such a diverse foundation in finance. I know our listeners are going to take a lot away from your insights on continuous learning, career growth, and just being able to adapt to change. To everyone that's tuned in, thank you for joining us for this episode of Careers in Finance. If Shubham's stories resonated with you, don't forget.

to check out the resources that we have at CFI to support your own career journey. And until next time, I'll see you in the next episode.