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VOICE–OVER: This is Alumni Aloud, a podcast by Graduate Center students for Graduate Center students. In each episode we talk with a GC graduate about their career path, the ins and outs of their current position, and the career advice they have for students. This series is sponsored by the Graduate Center’s Office of Career Planning & Professional Development. 

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SHEEHAN FAMEED, HOST: My name is Sheehan and I’m a Chemistry PhD student at The Graduate Center. Today I’m interviewing Kishore Gangangari, who graduated in the chemistry program from The Graduate Center in 2019. Currently he is a Life Science Consultant at Charles Rivers Associates. Ok so what is your name and what do you do for a living?  

KISHORE GANGANGARI, GUEST: Hi, I’m Kishore Gangangari. Currently as a Life Science Consultant with Charles Rivers Associates (CRA). CRA is a leading global consulting firm that offers multiple types of consulting services including financial, economics, and I am in their life sciences department.   

FAMEED: Ok. What is your academic background? 

GANGANGARI: I finished my PhD, graduated very recently in February 2019 but I started working October 2018 on CPT which we can come back to later. Before that I got my Master’s in Chemistry from Long Island University in 2013. Even prior to that I was getting a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences in India. So this was all related to my passion for sciences while I was growing up to know how things work, how medicines affect the body very precisely. So that’s where the pharmaceutical sciences started. That got me into chemistry and then I started graduate school for Organic Chemistry. And now deep-diving into more pharma businesses. 

FAMEED: As part of your work as a life science consultant? 

GANGANGARI: Yes. 

FAMEED: Let’s talk about scientific consulting because I feel like a lot of PhD students know that scientific consulting is a career path but don’t exactly know what it entails. So what do you have to say about that? 

GANGANGARI:  So scientific consulting is like not anything different from just you being a scientist and advising others on how to do stuff, how to solve their problems. But then a lot of times when you go to a company or when a company comes to you, it is not because they don’t have expertise. They know exactly what their product is, they know what they’re selling, they have very good marketing teams, they have very deep thinkers. But the reason they go to a consulting firm is they generally either don’t have bandwidth of resources to get it done or they generally want an external perspective. What these companies have is generally “oh I want to maybe go to this market, what does this market look like, can you tell me more about it. I’m trying to invest in this particular disease area, what are the growth options, what are not growth options, should I even go for it or not.” Essentially for us in life science consulting, these questions are all the ones that come to us from companies which are either small pharma’s, medium pharma’s, very large pharma’s, they all have their expert panels of people that are coming to us to ask these questions. And then we try to give them as comprehensive an answer as possible. 

FAMEED: Ok so you mentioned most of your clientele are small or big pharmaceuticals or people associated with the drug creation and delivery industry. Is this typical of all of your clients? How would you describe your typical client? 

GANGANGARI: So the typical client…there is none. *laughs* But, the entire pharma is our client. We each and every function of the pharma industry. There is a medical component of that right, where you have medical science liaisons who are trying to get the drugs out. There’s a commercial part of the drug company where they’re trying to commercialize the product. Of course there are multiple other parts, but these are generally the parts that are trying to move the business forward. So we’re answering business questions. The client could be any of them that is asking you questions. We also do a lot of analytics so there is just a lot work. That could come from somebody who is a scientific advisor at a company or scientific officers, chief science officers of a company. There’s no specific client, any part of the company could be our client. 

FAMEED: On that same note, if there’s no uniformity in your clients it seems like the work you do is also not uniform? 

GANGANGARI: Definitely not *laughs*. That is something I love about the consulting firm, is that you get to wear so many hats on a day-to-day basis. And at this moment if I think about the kinds of projects I’m working on, I’m doing one analytics project where we’re trying to forecast a market area for a specific company. And one of the other ones we’re trying to develop a strategy for a drug that is still in clinical phases and we’re trying to see how they should go into the market in like 3 or 4 years. And the other one is already launching in like 6 months and we are trying to give them details on how to do that. Difference in the work is like amazing, and if you’re one of those people for whom novelty excites you, this is one of the best places to be.  

FAMEED: So it sounds like that aspect of it, the novelty, is what really excites you about consultancy.  

GANGANGARI: Sure. 

FAMEED: Is there anything you find particularly challenging or difficult in consultancy? 

GANGANGARI: Of course, of course. Consultancy is definitely one of the not-so-easy jobs to do. It’s very demanding, that is what it is. You travel frequently from one client site to the other client site. You’re constantly developing decks and if you’re one of these who are like “oh I cannot work more than 8 hours,” consulting is definitely not for you. It’s definitely a very demanding job. It’s not always demanding, but there are some times that you have to push through and you have to get the job done. And that is what your job is. However stressed you might be, you always have to be that people’s person with whom the clients can feel comfortable with and who can talk to you about your stuff. They still have to believe you can do the job despite everything else that is going on in your life.  

FAMEED: So now let’s move on to the relationship between your actual PhD work and the job you’re in right now. First of all, did you always know you wanted to work in life science consulting? Or did you want to be in academia first? What was that process of going from your PhD to where you are now? 

GANGANGARI: Sure, that’s an interesting question. As I was going into the PhD I always wanted to be a professor or a scientist. That’s exactly what I wanted to be. But then I was also one of these people who was like trying to get onto every opportunity I could find. So I started as an organic chemistry major, I did everything I had to do. But at that time one of the professors for whom I had joined the college was leaving. So I was trying to find other alternative resources. Then I find this radiochemistry. And that was really mind-blowing for me. Like oh this a new cool science that I’ve never done. So I joined the radiochemistry part of the Chemistry department and I started working between Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) as a radiochemist and also at Hunter College. So I had two co-advisors which was also very exciting. And the good thing about being at an external forum or an external scientific institute like MSKCC is that you get to explore so many other things and you find that it is not just academia that is in front of you.  

So then I started going to their fairs, career fairs. So there were like scientists coming in to give their talks, there were biotech company people that were doing it and there was a consulting club which I joined. When I was in there, I got to know a lot of people. And I tried following them on professional networks and where they’re going, what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And that’s how I was like “oh this people are getting the same degrees and using it in different ways.” They’re moving at a much faster pace. And also at the same time, I was like “oh you can apply your degree in various other ways.” So it is not that the degree is only applicable to become a scientist or professor. That was a turning point for me to get into consulting. There are multiple things that I had to do to get to where I was and not always…I never thought I was going to be a consultant when I started my PhD program. I was always keeping an eye open for what else was happening. Not just being entirely focused on the science that I was doing. That was very exciting as well. 

FAMEED: That’s actually a good transition point. It sounds like you don’t do a lot of bench sciences anymore. What skills from your PhD did actually help you or are helping you right now in your job? 

GANGANGARI: That’s a very interesting question because that is something that you have to think of even before you go to work in consulting. You have to have a clear idea of why you want to get into consulting. You have spent a decent amount of time getting a PhD degree and then you have to decide why you want to get into a career which is outside of being a scientist, or bench science. So when you’re going through a PhD program, you are running your own project, you’re designing your own project, you know what timeline you want to happen. You are thinking critically even before you get into a project on various steps that might go wrong and you’re already making a plan B for if it goes wrong. So this is what will happen that time. And you’re also analyzing the results as they get to you. So you’re doing so many analyses at the same time. Finally, you’re making a presentation of everything that you’re doing and that spans many years. If you condense all of that into two months, that is exactly a consultant would be.  

So you go in a company like Company A comes with “Oh we want to know how this message is working for our patients.” So we’ll run a message board for them in two months. We hire respondents, they could be like patients, they could be physicians, they could be caregivers. Whoever they want to know if the message is working or not. You develop the entire timeline on how that is going to work, you do the work, you conduct the interviews or you do analysis or you do everything. And then you finally make a presentation and that happens in like two months or two and a half months. This is applicable to everything. And that’s what I think is very important in the skills that you learn in a PhD are time management, critical thinking, sticking to deadlines. I think those would be the important things. One thing that we don’t get during our PhDs and that must be developed before you go into consulting, is the interpersonal skills. When you go into consulting or any kind of an interview, they already know you’re smart. There is no doubt that you’re smart, you’ve gotten a PhD during this time, you’re definitely going to be smart. But can you work with other people? Can you work in teams? That is one thing that we all have to develop. Develop those interpersonal skills and develop those connections. Get out of our comfort zone of being in the corner wearing the headset and working all night through. Do that, but also try to mingle with people. 

FAMEED: Something that listening to you made me curious about is, one thing you do as a STEM PhD is talk about your work to other scientists and other people. Obviously you have to communicate a lot as a science consultant but is there a gap in the type of communication that you would communicate for example to your group members in your lab meeting versus your communication to one of your clients or whoever is interested in what you have? 

GANGANGARI: Yes, there is. And that is the skill that you have to develop generally after you go into consulting. How to really phrase the sentences to make them understandable. So all the clients, they’re not on the same page as you are with your lab members, as your boss, as your PI might be. So they might be coming into this with completely new eyes. You have to break the concept apart and you have to make it digestible. You always cannot say things in a very harsh manner. If something does not work, “hey we don’t think this is a good way to go.” There has to be a sort of way of how you say it. And whenever you say it, you have to have a really strong backing of facts behind what you’re actually saying and why you’re saying it. So break it down into smaller parts and polish the words that you say. I think those are the differences when you’re talking to your lab members versus a client. 

FAMEED: On a similar note, it sounds like you talked a lot about marketing decisions or business decisions related to scientific products such as drugs and pharmaceuticals. Are these conversations that you have largely scientific or did you have to kind of develop a way to “speak marketing” so to say? 

GANGANGARI: Yeah, everything that you say is based on facts. And the facts are scientific. There’s always this component of everything that you’re saying in life science consulting is fact-based and that is also one of the major selling points of Charles River Associates is that it was established by PhDs. And it still works in the same way. Major decisions that you are giving are all backed by scientific terms. At the same time, because your goal is for your client’s business to flourish, there has to be a particular lingo that you generally develop. You don’t come in with it but we all develop it, that business communication.  

FAMEED: We can move on to how you actually chose this job and how you found it. So we talked briefly about how you came across consulting as a career. What did the job search process in the end stages look like for you? I guess the better question to begin with is when did you start thinking about careers and more specifically when did you start thinking about a career as a consultant. 

GANGANGARI: Right. So I was in my third year of the PhD when I started thinking about various other options which are available, about what I want to do next, what are the possible options. That is when consulting also came in. This was not the only thing I was looking into. I was also looking into venture capital, I was also looking into being a postdoc. I was also interviewing for venture capital firms. I got a couple of offers from there as well. And there were also medical writing interviews that I did. But the consulting is something that captured my mind even starting my third year. I went into this consulting club, I started doing cases. So business cases are something you have to practice even before you go. So joined the consulting club, started doing these cases. You meet other consultants, sometimes you get in touch with other clubs. There are case competitions that happen. And then I also did a pro-bono consulting for one of the firms here in New York which had a real business case question. After doing all those things, I was like “hm it seems like there is a possibility that I’m going to like it.”  

So I started applying for various summer internship programs, that’s how people do it. Some were internships where you start applying. I applied for the Big 3 and applied for other smaller consulting firms. But I did not get in any of them and I applied for McKinsey, BCG, Bain during my fourth year. Nobody got in touch with me, nobody called me back for an interview. And then I started applying for the other boutique firms, I got a couple of interviews back. And then when I was in my fifth year I was almost ready to defend. Then, I got into Charles Rivers Associate for a first-round interview then a second-round interview. That is how the general process works for anyone who is trying to get into consulting. There’s always a first-round interview where they’re going to be like “if he’s a weirdo we’re not even going to hire him.” *laughs* So you have to get through that first phone call interview stage. And then after that you have case interviews where they give you a hypothetical case that they’ll ask you to think through. And they’re trying to see how critically you can think. After that you have a fit interview. A fit interview is where they are trying to see if you are going to be a good fit for the company. Do you have the skills that are needed for you to work in teams, to cope with the pressure that is going to come and so on and so forth. And then you have a presentation after everything is done. If you clear all these rounds of interviews, you become a consultant.  

How do you prepare for all this? You generally start early. And one major piece of advice that I have for everybody who is looking for jobs, it’s never too early to start looking for jobs. Even if you don’t start applying, keep an eye on what the requirements are for a particular job. Like whenever they publish a job they have requirements and stuff. So make sure that you’re trying to get a story for each of their requirements. It might be through internships, it might be through externships, it might from participating in various doctoral councils, it could be pro-bono, it could be anything. Try to get as many of them under your sleeve during your PhD years. And those things take time. Even though consulting doesn‘t have courses that you can take, there are plenty of books that you can read about how consultants work. There are plenty of videos online that you could watch. There are plenty of podcasts that are happening as of now. And this is one of them, yes! And there are websites of each company. Go through each company’s website. See what they’re asking for, what skills they’re needing.  

Once you have done that, the major interview part, the major thing that will get you through the interviews is informational interviews. Informational interviews are the part where you get in touch with somebody from the company. It is generally so cold calls or LinkedIn. This is not only just for consulting but any job that you want to do. You must do some informational interviews with people at your prospective employer. You start realizing that as you go further there are recommendations to get into the company that when you know someone inside the company. That will go very far instead of just submitting blank resumes and cover letters. Be mindful of that. Find an ally for you, find an advocate for you inside the company. Have as many informational interviews with as many people as possible. This is not a Bible of how you can prepare, but that is also a very important part of being a consultant, to be able to find information. Finding information about the job is I think the first part. Do all these things and do more.  

FAMEED: So you mentioned the importance of having a contact and basically that networking will go a long way in terms of helping you get interviews. Can you talk about any important mentors, any relationships or any other networking opportunities that helped you during your career transition? 

GANGANGARI: Sure. So there were plenty of alumni from the consulting clubs that I was going to. Other than that, I was always in touch with them to see where they’re going. What you have to understand is what people will do for you when you have this contact. The best is that they’ll get you an interview, that is where you have to prove yourself. So first round is done, second round is done, third round is done. So they can get you a foot in the door but they’re not going to open the door for you. That’s something that a lot of people get wrong. People are not going to give you a job, that’s not how it works. People are going to give you an opportunity to prove yourself that a lot of people don’t get. So I had very good mentors. People from career development offices, both here at The Graduate Center and at MSKCC, with whom I could just drop in and ask questions. I came into The Graduate Center for multiple resume reviews.  

Every time I came in there was something new and there was something different that I could have done. I think that re-iteration process really helped me a lot. Coming to other mentors other than the people who got jobs. People who are also in science that helped me a lot by hooking me up with their friends in pharma companies, where you could just talk to them about how their careers are happening, where they see their futures going and so on and so forth. So yes, having a mentor, having somebody to look up to, having somebody to know more about how the information at a company actually works is definitely needed. 

FAMEED: Basically to synthesize everything you said about the job search: start early, so you started in your third year which I would say is pretty early. Take advantage of all the resources that you have at your disposal, so The Graduate Center obviously has a lot of workshops and events. Cold-calling or basically anyway to gather information about requirements, networking. That’s pretty much a very basic walk through. 

GANGANGARI: Sure, yeah networking. So one thing I want the listeners to understand is, you’re not asking anybody for something they’re not willing to do. All you’re trying to do is trying to get to somebody, ask for help, not a bad thing. If you cannot ask for help, consulting is going to be a very difficult job for you. So all you’re trying to do while networking is trying to ask for help. The ball is in their court now. If they want to help you, they’ll help you. If they cannot, you have to understand that they are very busy on the other side as well. Sometimes they cannot. Either case, you have done your part and if they cannot help move on, find somebody else. There are many people who are willing to help. Please network! Be as social as possible. That will get you very far. 

FAMEED: How did you choose your current firm compared to other firms? So why did you choose Charles Rivers Associates? What are things to look over when considering the realm of consulting firms?     

GANGANGARI: Right. The reason why I went Charles Rivers Associates was because of one of the contacts that I had in the company. I went for an informational interview with her one day. We were just hanging out for a coffee. I sneakily pulled out my resume and she helped me to see how to actually frame that resume for that particular job at that particular firm. I submitted that, I got through the first round and second round. And then I defended my thesis. I didn’t know that I was going to get the job then obviously. I was also going through the process with various other companies at the same time. As soon as I defended my thesis, I was called for an on-site for the next two rounds of interviews. And I went there and then within a week I got a call from the company. I went in again to meet the people.  

I went to see how the company culture is, how they’re doing. One of the best things I liked about the company is that most of the clients were local. Meaning that you could just be traveling to the client site during the day and then be back home, instead of other major firms where you have to be on-site Monday to Thursday and only be back in your city on Fridays. So this was less travel-intensive. And all the people that I talked to, they all knew where a PhD would come from because it is such a PhD-heavy firm. Nobody wanted you to fail. That’s what I thought was most impressive about the company. And compensation and the benefits were very good. All that is why I thought “oh this is a great camaraderie that is going on at the firm. Everybody seems to be chill, people know where you’re coming from.” 

FAMEED: The summary just sounds like you got your foot in the door with networking, you went to the office to check it out, and I assume you really liked the physical office after the first round of interviews, the people you worked with. And especially the fact that it was a PhD-holder-driven firm. 

GANGANGARI: And very helpful people. Being here for one year now that is what I’ve also learned. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to hold your hand all the way through. But they’ll guide you through. 

FAMEED: So one aspect of consultancy…you mentioned the benefit of working in New York City is that a lot of your clients are in New York City. Can you speak to the traveling intensity as a consultant? 

GANGANGARI: So they’re not all in New York, they are in New Jersey, south New Jersey or Philadelphia, Boston. Everything is manageable. And there are some projects which require you to be meeting clients on-site for four days a week, which I’ve never had to. The most I ever had to do was first to go over the project and maybe once to meet with the clients again and to deliver the product. That may be three times during three months. So sometimes it might get more hectic, but with CRA having so many offices everywhere. So we have multiple offices, we have in New Jersey, we have in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago. There are multiple in the US, there are multiple in Europe. So there’s one in Cambridge, Munich, Lucerne. These are the main life science ones. The projects can be managed and staffed according to the needs so that nobody has to travel a lot. With our firm, it’s very manageable and a lot of people don’t travel at all. 

FAMEED: Now I just want to ask a few miscellaneous questions. So you mentioned that you actually got your Bachelor’s in India. What has been your experience as an international student? Is there anything specific you can share for other international students? 

GANGANGARI: Being an international student is difficult. The thing is that nothing is impossible. It is definitely difficult being an international student but if you plan properly and get the right network and right people you will be able to do whatever you want to do. So for example, even to be at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I had to renew my CPT every semester. So every semester that was the same process. I had to find a boss and I had to find the DSO, Executive Officer and then everybody had to sign. Then had to go to MSKCC, they had to approve it again for every semester. And then towards the end of it, when you’re a PhD student you generally don’t know when you’re graduating, when you are submitting. So you have to be extra meticulous about planning.  

Because to start working you have to have an OPD card in your hand or the company has to be flexible with you working on a CPT. You cannot work on a CPT for full-time if you already used up your CPT. There are many loops. You have to jump through bureaucracy to be able to start working. It’s the same thing in Europe as well if you want to get there. Their bureaucracy is also difficult. That’s just the first part. Then once you join it’s not going to be easy because if someone is not an international student they can just say “hey I don’t like this job and can quit.” But now when you’re with a company you cannot say that because your visa is dependent on your employer. So there are so many things that international students have to be aware of before getting into this job search. But you can do it. Planning, planning, planning. *laughs* That is what will get you across. 

FAMEED: So what are your future prospects? Do you ever think you’ll return to academia? Just in general what do you think you see yourself doing for example in the next few years? 

GANGANGARI: Consulting as it is, it is generally not a job in itself. It is a doorway to multiple jobs. It depends on where I want to take it in the future. You’ll also hear from other firms that they always say “people who come here have become CEO, CSO.” Consulting is generally like a door open. It’ll open doors to various opportunities than just being an opportunity in itself. I can grow organically within the firm. Consulting is such a job that there’s a constant turnover. People try this for like four or five years or two or three years depending on which firm you’re at. Our firm is known to have longer turnover rates. After two to five years, that’s when people start thinking about where to go. If you’re in life sciences generally you end up in a pharma company where you’re trying to run one of specific functions. I have known people who have started their own start-ups. Some people who have gone back to research as a scientist. So there are multiple things that I know people have done.  

FAMEED: Final question: Do you see yourself ever doing research again? 

GANGANGARI: *laughs*  

FAMEED: You mentioned that some people do get into research again. 

GANGANGARI: Some people do get into research. There is quite a possibility that I might be involved with research, not exactly as doing benchwork. But every part of research requires somebody to plan everything right. So it is quite possible, like you might see me in a clinical trial in the future. I might not be running a trial, but I might be doing something. Science research is not just doing bench research. Running the research lab, planning clinical trials, getting logistics done for a company. They all are a part of research as well.  

FAMEED: So in summary, a lot of the skills from your PhD, maybe not exactly scientific skills but definitely critical thinking, preparing presentations, presenting your data. All of these factors and will probably continue to come into play in your career in the future. As far as looking for a job, planning was a very important factor and networking, especially as an international student. 

GANGANGARI: I think you have summed it up in a very good way. It was nice having a chat with you.                

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