1/21 | Sharveen Seebaluck - Morgan Stanley Capital Partners

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Synergist Senior Sound Bites - January 2021:

Sharveen Seebaluck

Vice President of Operations, Morgan Stanley Capital Partners
B.S. and M.S. Florida Institute of Technology, M.B.A. Columbia Business School

Background

Sharveen Seebaluck is a Vice President of Operations at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners (“MSCP” or “Capital Partners”), a middle-market private equity platform based in New York that focuses primarily on North America. Sharveen joined Morgan Stanley Capital Partners in 2019. Previously, Sharveen was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey where she focused on Strategy and Growth Transformation Advisory. Prior to McKinsey, Sharveen was an Associate at Goldman Sachs within their Commodities Power and Natural Gas business. She holds a B.S. and M.S. from Florida Institute of Technology and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background—where you grew up and your decision to come to the United States?

I grew up in Mauritius, a small island on the east of Madagascar, and always had a fascination with airplanes. Before university, I was set on becoming a pilot, and only considered universities focused on aerospace and aeronautical programs. Although I had opportunities to go to university in France and Australia, there was something about going farther to the U.S. that got me excited, and when the opportunity presented itself, I went for it. I had never even been to the U.S. before and looking back I am amazed that I made the leap! I did not end up pursuing a career as an airline pilot, but thankfully I still get to travel quite a bit as part of my job today!

Please describe your experience starting your career at Goldman Sachs and your decision to leave and pursue an MBA?

Following university, I started my career at Goldman Sachs during the summer of 2008 in a Special Executions group working on physical power and natural gas transactions with the Sales and Trading desk. Three months after, the financial crisis hit and nothing was quite the same anymore. Navigating through this crisis for the years to follow, I remember telling myself that I wanted to be in position that if I ever lost my job, or something happened to the sector I was in, I would have enough transferable skills that I could pivot and build a new career.

In my role at the time, I was becoming specialized too early on in my career, and while continuing on the Commodities path at Goldman Sachs would have gotten me promoted faster, I feared ever limiting myself career-wise. I knew at that point I needed to rebrand myself, and determined that pursuing an MBA would be a great way to do it. I also had my mind set that I wanted to pursue management consulting post business school as a way to broaden both my sector and functional exposure.

Can you speak about your decision to leave consulting and go into Private Equity?

After receiving my MBA from Columbia Business School, I spent five years at McKinsey in consulting and got to work with some of the smartest people I have ever met. For the first three years, I primarily worked in consumer and consumer-facing sectors doing more traditional client advisory work. In my last two years though, I pivoted to longer engagements around growth transformations, whereby I got the opportunity to work closely with clients to not only define the answer, but also implement projects side by side with them. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with clients this way, and constantly thought to myself “how can I replicate this experience?”

I knew staying in my current role at McKinsey meant continuing on the advisory side and would become further from the operating role as I became more senior—and that’s when I started researching operating roles in private equity, which I felt was the right balance—I’d be closer to driving change and creating value at the portfolio-company level, which still holding an advisory eye, tapping into the knowledge I have built during my consulting years. And that is how I found myself at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners as an operating Vice President, where I focus on creating value alongside the portfolio company management teams.

What is your favorite part about your role at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners?

Being in the trenches with management, driving progress together, and achieving the wins along the way have been rewarding aspects of my job today. The portfolio companies Capital Partners works with are in the middle-market, and you can pivot these businesses much faster than larger organizations, which has been an exciting change for me.

Separately, the operating partners at Capital Partners are primarily ex-industry executives with over 15 years of senior leadership experience at large organizations and I feel very privileged to be able to work with them on a day-to-day basis—I would not get that kind of learning exposure and access elsewhere.

What do you consider to be the most important skills to be successful in your role?

To be effective in this role, it is critical for me to build trusting relationships with the portfolio management team, especially given the added structural complexity of being part of the Capital Partners team. As a result, I am particularly sensitive to the portfolio company values and culture; I make it a point to focus on the people aspect in conjunction with value creation opportunities—as you can’t do one without the other.

Do you have any advice for women just starting out in their careers?

You can plan ahead (and you should!), but know that not everything will go exactly as you planned. It is important to be resilient and adapt along the way—consider your plan to be an iterative one that you continue to refine along the way based on opportunities (and challenges) that come your way. You may end up someplace even better than you had hoped!

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

The Real Housewives (New York, Beverly Hills, and London!) is my weeknight guilty pleasure—it’s hilarious and at the same time gives me visibility into the lives of people I would never interact with otherwise. I also love traveling—it’s my real passion in life. Perhaps linked to growing up on an island where I felt the world was so large, I always had this desire to discover new places, cultures, and people. I crave that diversity of mind and experience.

Thank you for your time, Sharveen! To learn more about Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, click here.