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Sunayana Gutta, Senior Financial Analyst at General Motors, shares a detailed account of what it's like to work in Corporate Finance - from examples of projects to her typical day to her advice for interested candidates.

Sunayana has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

Some of the areas that Sunayana touches upon in this episode include:

1. How Sunayna tried various functions such as VC and Investment Banking, and why she decided to get into Corporate Finance

2. What does someone in Corporate Finance do

3. Examples of projects someone in Corporate Finance works on

4. Type of teams found within Corp Finance generally. Eg: Forex team, Capital Management team, Treasury team, etc.

5. Examples of things someone in Finance thinks about when making decisions

6. How companies generally have a generalist or specialist approach towards staffing Corp Finance, and how it's important to know about this before joining the company

7. Why Sunayna enjoys working in Corp Finance, and elements she finds challenging

8. Resources - CFO Magazine - http://ww2.cfo.com/source/cfo-magazine/, Annual Reports MD&A section, Ashwat Damodaran Blog (professor at Yale) - http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/

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Clara Nellist, Particle Physict at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), shares a broad overview of what it's like working in the field of science.

Some of the areas that Clara touches upon include:

1. Types of projects she works on

2. Defining characteristics of a career in science

3. How there's a lot of failure and need for persistence

4. Resources to learn more about the latest in the field

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Excerpts from Tweets by Naval Ravikant: https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936 , Post by Taylor Pearson: https://taylorpearson.me/thework/ and the book "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art

Leah Burnett, Former Senior Director for Strategy & Planning @Viacom, shares her thoughts on what's involved in working in a Strategy function at a large company. Prior to Viacom, Leah has worked in consulting at BCG and Finance at UBS and Citigroup.

Leah has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and MBA from The Wharton School.

Some of the areas that Leah touches upon in this episode include:

1. Why Leah moved from finance to consulting to strategy

2. Examples of projects you might work in a Strategy team

3. Stages in a typical Strategy project

4. Sample team scructures

5. What to look for in a Strategy team

6. Interesting and Challenging aspects of the job

7. What Leah does not like as much about working in strategy

8. Skills needed to do well in Strategy

9. Typical background found in strategy teams

10. Recommended resources

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

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David Salazar, Head of Marketing for Amazon Business, shares some of the key decisions he took early in his career that helped him along the way, and his advice for early career professionals.

David has an MBA from Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Some of the areas that David touches upon in this episode include:

1. Why David prioritized joining a good company over the function he was interested in

2. How David thinks about moving from one job to another

3. Importance of having a vision for yourself

4. Recommended resources

5. Career advice

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

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Former Googler Sarah Cooper describes her journey as she moved from Tech to Comedy. Today, Sarah is a successful writer and comedian, with a popular blog https://thecooperreview.com/ that gets >100,000 readers per month. She regularly performs as a standup comic, and has authored multiple books inlcuding "100 Tricks To Appear Smart In Meetings" - https://www.amazon.com/100-Tricks-Appear-Smart-Meetings/dp/1449476058

Some of the areas that Sarah touches upon in this episode include:

1. How Sarah kept working on her writing and her comedy, while she was doing her day job

2. What convinced Sarah to leave her job at Googler

3. The challenges she faced after quitting her job

4. Some things that Sarah thinks helped her get through this transition phase

5. Sarah's advice for anyone contemplating a similar career change

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

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Mariyam Zhumadil, Associate Investment Officer at International Finance Corporation or the IFC, describes in detail what it is like to work in the field of Development Finance.

Mariyam has a Masters in Accounting from Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Some of the areas that Mariyam touches upon in this episode include:

1. What is Development Finance

2. Difference between Impact Investing and Development Finance

3. Example of projects that you might work on in Development Finance

4. Sample backgrounds for candidates who end up in this space

5. Interesting and Challenging aspects of the job

6. Recruiting tips

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

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Dushka Zapata, VP Comms @Zendesk and Top Writer on Quora (>100M views on her Quora answers), shares more detail on one of her recent answers to the question "What are things you wish someone had told you when you were in your twenties?"

We delve into further discussion on the following points from Dushka's answer:

1. "Networking events = waste of time. No, I will not “work a room”. "

2. "Things will bounce back at you so fast you’ll get whiplash. Your intern will be your boss soon. So soon. Act accordingly."

3. "Travel. Read. Develop a point of view. Curiosity is where it’s at."

4. "Don’t regard peers as competitors; don’t concoct rivalries. We are in this together."

5. "It’s possible to make all the right decisions and end up with an undesired outcome. Ergo, the outcome cannot possibly be the measure of your decisions."

6. "Examine the reason — the real reason — behind the decisions you make. Your ego will get you every. Single. Time."

Thank you for listening!!

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"It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves."

Excerpts from the wonderful commencement speech delivered by Bill Watterson, Creator of Calvin & Hobbes, at Kenyon College.

Full speech can be found here: http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

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Uzo Osikhena, former Senior Program Manager with Clinton Health Access Initiative and currently with Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health), describes what working in the field of International Development (Global Health is like).

Uzo has an MBA from The Wharton School, with a focus on Finance and Management.

Some of the things that Uzo touches upon in this episode include:

1. How Uzo's work in the international development practice at Accenture exposed her to the field and ultimately convinced her to work in Global Health full time

2. How there are several disciplines within International Development - Global Health, Finance, Agriculture, Public Policy & Governance, Environment, etc.

3. Examples of the kind of projects that someone would work in International Development

4. How to think about the kind of roles you can pursue in International Development

5. Uzo describes a project she worked on as part of the Clinton Health Access Initiative - Increasing access to family planning for women in Nigeria

6. How her project involved changing people's attitude towards family planning, and why that was challenging

7. Potential frustrations of working in International Development - financial tradeoffs vs other jobs such as banking, career trajectory can potentially plateau, it's not always the most efficient sector

8. How to identify what problems to work on: Go to the website of a large donor such as Gates foundation, and start researching the areas you see there to see what aligns with your interests.

9. Skills needed to do well on the job - Writing skills, ability to partner and build a sense of community, influence, communication and lots of compassion

10. Resources: devex.com , developmentaid.org - https://www.developmentaid.org/#!/home , websites of orgs such as WHO, Unicef, Gates Foundation

Thank you for listening!!

Follow the show on Twitter @LED_Curator

Website www.learneducatediscover.com/

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Subscribe to the show on iTunes itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/learn…ver/id1049159321