Neha Mathur

VP in Retail, Consumer and Leisure at Advent International

Background
Neha Mathur joined Advent International in 2016 as an associate in the retail, consumer and leisure sector, after working as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in NYC. She received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School and a BSE in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering, summa cum laude. Neha also received her MBA from Harvard Business School. She completed an internship at Bain Capital’s Double Impact fund during her time at business school. After receiving her MBA, she rejoined Advent as a Vice President in the retail, consumer & leisure team. Neha is currently on the board of Sovos Brands and has worked on Advent’s investments in Olaplex, Orveon, Sovos Brands and First Watch.
 
What led you to pursue a career in investing?
At McKinsey, everything felt temporary in nature. I loved the people I met in consulting and everyone was so sharp and thoughtful, but I felt like at the junior level I didn’t have a chance to dig deep into questions because there was always the knowledge that the project was short-term. I thought investing could be neat because you still get to work with smart people in a collaborative way, but you get to have a longer term approach forming relationships with executives and portfolio companies that stretch beyond a few months. Investing allowed me to do what I found exciting which was to build relationships and get to know companies and business models a bit deeper and strategically. And, you get to be the final owner on an answer.
 
Were you able to build those relationships as an associate?
I had incredible exposure to relationship building with executives as an associate. I still feel fortunate to be in touch with executives I got to know during my associate years, even if they aren’t part of my portfolio companies today. As an example, with Sovos Brands, we built that business up from scratch when I was an associate. A platform deal like that is a great way to get to know your management teams because 1) you’re building the company, so you’re working side-by-side on everything down to minor details, and 2) as you think about M&A, the deal team is very involved in building the strategy and direction, and associates can play a bigger role. This type of exposure helped elevate me as an associate and allowed me to build lasting relationships with my portfolio and even third party advisors. It was the best part of the role!
 
What influenced your decision to go to business school?
I was initially not sure if I wanted to go to business school because I had a finance undergrad degree, but in the end I’m so glad that I did. One of the factors that influenced my decision was that during associate recruiting, I certainly opted into the process, but given the recruiting time pressures I couldn’t be as thoughtful as I would have wanted about the firm or industry I wanted to be in. It felt like a natural step coming out of consulting, but I never critically asked myself to confirm if this was the right part of investing I want to build a long term career in, and whether this was the right team to do that with. It felt a bit more reactive, so I saw business school as a way to take time to be more proactive in those decisions.

The second influence was a piece of advice I received from a senior partner at the time. He told me that careers in this industry are long, and business school gives you the chance to spend two years getting to build out your network of other investors and operators – and these relationships will last your career. Women sometimes don’t have as many “built-in” networks as men do in this industry – but to succeed, network is an important factor, and so business school gave me a chance to develop this. I now not only have a close network of women investors (but more importantly, just really good friends!), and also a broader network of those in the industry.
 
How did you think about returning to investing post-MBA?
I spent my first semester of business school going to all the info sessions of other corporate job functions, and nothing felt as interesting or compelling to me in the long term vs. investing. I wanted to work on needle-moving strategies for businesses, and the investing role post-MBA gives you incredible amount of opportunity to do this. For example, I’m able to be on a public board at 31 – that’s incredible. You get to work on some of the most interesting questions and problems a business faces, while also getting to build meaningful relationships with executives.

During my MBA, I did a summer in impact investing to figure out if I’m more driven by driving impact through investing, or if I can accomplish that as a general investor. I really liked my summer, but in the end felt like I could still drive real impact and change working as a general investor at a firm that had values I aligned to. It also came down to people – I was looking for teams that could be my sponsors to help me grow in this industry. Having spent my associate years at Advent, I already knew there was a team there that was looking out for me to succeed and would sponsor my career.
 
What have you found the most rewarding about private equity? What has been the most challenging?
One thing that’s been the most rewarding is knowing that you’re truly building businesses. As mentioned earlier, Sovos is a great example of a business that I was in the weeds with, bringing every level of resource and thought that I could. When you step back a few years later and look at what we’ve built, it’s incredible. Knowing that these companies couldn’t have achieved their successes without my team’s help, and seeing the step changes in performance, is rewarding. And it’s not only seeing the business results, but also how grateful the teams get when stepping back to appreciate what they’ve accomplished with us.

What’s been most challenging is that this is a high responsibility role. With this level of responsibility, you’re inadvertently impacting so many people’s lives through a company’s trajectory, that I think the stress of that can get to you and you can feel the ramifications of the decisions you make. The challenge is trying to balance the knowledge that everything you’re doing is high impact with not letting every little stress of the day get to you. It’s important to figure out ways to balance that so you can be the best contributor to whatever you’re working on. 
 
What have been some different skills needed between the associate and VP role?
On a day-to-day basis, the main skill needed would probably be to push to a higher level of thinking. It’s important to still be grounded in the details of diligence while also being able to synthesize learnings and communicate evolving views to a diverse set of stakeholders. As an associate, I was more focused on owning discrete workstreams, with others pulling the different answers together.

One other pivot is the “people” side of the job. As a VP you need to be able to build meaningful relationships and be the chosen partner for management teams, advisors, and future buyers of your business. It’s important to learn how to interact with and influence a diverse set of people. 
 
What has been one of the best pieces of advice you’ve received throughout your career?
This job can be all-consuming, so you have to create moments to do the things you love. You will be at your best when you find balance. It’s important to not let some of the basic stuff go, because before you know it, you’ll be feeling burnout and not love the job. You are the only one who is going to be truly looking out for yourself. There will be others who want the best for you, but you’re the only one who will know what you need. And also – be yourself at work! We all need to embrace some diversity.
 
What has been a favorite book you’ve read recently?
I do Book of the Month, and I choose the exact same genre each time – mystery / thrillers with a side of rom-com. We have such stressful jobs and lives, so while I would aspire to be a person that reads great non-fiction books that teach me things, books are my way to unplug. I like to read things that are fun and lighter. One of the books I did really like was “All The Dangerous Things” by Stacy Willingham.
 
Thank you for your time, Neha! To learn more about Advent International, click here.