Synergist Senior Sound Bites - January 2022:

Veda Eswarappa

Vice President, Great Hill Partners
A.B. Harvard University; M.B.A. Harvard Business School

Background:

Veda Eswarappa is a Vice President at Great Hill Partners, a growth-focused private equity firm based in Boston, where she invests in healthcare and software companies. Veda joined GHP in 2018 after graduating from Harvard Business School. While at HBS, Veda interned at Cue Ball Capital, worked with Bain Capital Double Impact as a market research consultant and was a Kaplan Fellow. Prior to business school, Veda was a consultant at Parthenon-EY, spending time in their Boston, Mumbai and Singapore offices. She also holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering from Harvard University.

Coming from a consulting background, what made you decide to explore a career in investing?

Funnily enough, while I was in consulting I didn't seriously consider a career in private equity. Due diligence projects for PE clients were not my favorite type of work and I ignored every PE recruiter email and LinkedIn message! 

In business school I started learning more about investing and realized there were aspects that really did appeal to me. As with consulting, I would get to work with smart people, learn a lot, balance qualitative and quantitative aspects, and satisfy my intellectual curiosity by learning about many different topics in a sector I care about (healthcare); however, unlike consulting, I would have some skin in the game as well as a longer time horizon to actually work with interesting companies and entrepreneurs. Therefore, I used business school as an opportunity to try out different flavors of investing through internships and term-time work. During my second year, I realized that growth investing would be the perfect "Goldilocks" fit for me: late enough that there is a clear value prop and product-market fit but early enough that there is tremendous potential in where the company can go, multiple paths to get there, and real opportunity to add strategic and operational value that is not just reliant on financial engineering.

What surprised you most about joining a private equity firm?

Probably how collaborative it is. I had heard stories about how cutthroat and sharp-elbowed the industry could be so I was shocked by how collegial the environment was at Great Hill. I still remember how supportive my team was on my first deal, from the Associate graciously helping me think through model mechanics late at night (even though I am confident he could have built it himself five times faster) to the Principal happily setting aside time to talk through my beginner-level questions on the market. I think this collaborative ethos leads to a level of open-mindedness to new and different ideas that hopefully also leads to better investment outcomes. I appreciate that I am encouraged to speak up if I have a different point of view from my MDs and that they take my voice seriously.

What advice would you give women looking to join a fund at the mid-level after business school?

Be honest with yourself about what is most important to you in the role you are seeking. Is it sector focus, culture, compensation, investment style, brand name, average hours per week, something else? Remember: it is ok to want something different from what others want or think you should want. It is also totally fine if your priorities change over time.

Personally, I had a few key criteria but culture was absolutely #1. While I won't pretend I didn't occasionally get distracted by other factors during the recruiting process ("Firm A might pay more! Firm B is offering a fancier title!") this simplified my fund diligence process in many ways.

What advice would you give women looking to go to business school and make a career pivot?

One: I think it is great to enter business school with a few different ideas of what you could be interested in pursuing. If you go in with blinders on, dead set on Role X at Company Y, you are bound to miss out on interesting opportunities. Plus, you may realize your initial vision isn't actually what you want and it can be difficult to course correct with all your eggs in one basket. Conversely, if you have no real guiding principles, you can end up confused and exhausted after attending every possible information session with little time to actually reflect and think critically about what you are learning and what you want

Two: Use the network. People talk a big game about business school networks for a reason, and most people like being helpful. For a long time I thought "networking" would feel fake, transactional, or uncomfortable. And sure, sometimes it can. But then I realized that even listening to stories my friends told about their prior jobs at lunch and asking following up questions was me learning something valuable from my "network", and that certainly didn't feel unnatural. Similarly, chatting with a professor about potential career paths felt normal, as did accepting her offer to connect me with her husband for advice when I had offers in hand (he worked in the industry and had great perspective).

What is your favorite part of living in Boston?

Aside from having a great network of family and friends in the area (I grew up nearby), one thing I love about Boston is how much beautiful outdoor space there is both inside the city proper (e.g., the Public Garden, the Esplanade, the Greenway) and right outside (e.g., the Blue Hills reservation, the Boston Harbor Islands). I definitely gained a greater appreciation for this during the pandemic.

What is your favorite recent read?

I thought The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead was excellent. It is fiction but inspired by occurrences at a real reform school during the Jim Crow era (which led me down a heavy but informative Wikipedia rabbit hole once I finished the book).

Thank you for your time, Veda!