Name: Gursimran Ahuja | Designation: Senior Manager | Company: Bain & Co | Location: San Francisco, USA
(January 15, 2025) The paradigm of success is interpreted differently by the ambitious and the driven. From a seven-figure salary to a corner office, or being one’s own boss, everyone has a different definition of success.
For Gursimran Ahuja, however, success is about going the extra mile – beyond the job description, doing more; and paying it forward. A firm belief in the former has led to her becoming a senior manager at Bain & Co, a top global consulting firm. The latter, an initiative titled Successfully Yours that she started during the pandemic to help students and young people at the brink of their careers, has benefitted over 200 of them.
Paying it forward
In an exclusive with Global Indian, Gursimran Ahuja or Simran, as she is called, recalls how she started Successfully Yours. “Paying it forward is one of the core ways someone can learn in life. I have been a strong beneficiary of the mentorship of people that I worked with and even those I came across via other professional settings. I try to ensure I am there for people who are starting on similar trajectories. It always pays to ask questions; that is how I grew.
“I started career coaching during COVID – it was more of a reactive move as young students and early-stage professionals reached out to me for guidance with their careers. I decided to make it more structured and proactive and to date, I have advised more than 200 students directly and multiple others via one-to-many engagements largely via social media. For similar outcomes, I have also partnered with industry partners and professionals in education like Seekho, iQuanta, Knowell Consulting etc.”
Simran fondly recalls many of the career stories that she has touched via Successfully Yours, including an MBA graduate who was able to crack into one of the top financial tech companies with her guidance and continues to come back for support and advice as she thinks about career pivots going forward. Simran also helped someone with a family business get exposure working with a scale corporation in the same sector and build the foundational knowledge that eventually made this person a more well-rounded manager for their company.
A strong work ethic
Additionally, her career trajectory at Bain & Co, since she joined them in June 2018, has been satisfying, multi-dimensional and on the up and up. Simran’s work ethic and her outlook towards her work have had a significant impact. She says, “I’ve been working for the last seven or eight years and it still surprises me that I am still learning on the job. I have always believed in looking for opportunities – what else can I do to either go deeper in that field or branch out and do more.”
Simran’s foundation in consulting was laid perhaps while growing up as she was part of a business family where cost, profits and other fundamentals were discussed at home. As the first young person in her family to work outside of Ludhiana in Punjab where she grew up, Simran graduated with distinction and an award for top female student among others in computers and informatics-focused branches as part of her degree in Electronics Engineering from IIT, Roorkee. This was followed by an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.
When she started working with Bain, her office was in Delhi but she used to travel for work extensively. A few years later, she joined the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University – for an additional accelerated Masters in Business Management with a deep focus on finance and strategy. “I lived in Chicago for a year (2021-22) – graduated with a mention on the Dean’s List, and won the Dean’s Service Award for contributions to the Kellogg community,” she recalls. Simran has been at the company’s San Francisco office since then.
She believes that consulting as a career can be extremely rewarding due to its multi-dimensional nature. “I believe consulting is one of the best ways to get diverse exposure to industries and problem statements across the board – I have worked in e-commerce, infrastructure, technology, software etc., and touched business problems like operating models, strategy, due diligence, post-acquisition work – there’s no other career where you can get so much exposure in a limited time. It also helps build a lot of leadership experience very early on given that apprenticeship is a core part of the job – coaching and learning from the people around you is fundamental to growth in this segment.”
Supporting women at work
Simran is also part of the Women at Bain initiative at her company where she enables avenues to drive support for female colleagues. “Advocating for women is a passion for me, especially in sectors where representation is not at par or sub par – I have been the only woman in multiple classrooms throughout my life and, the only woman in multiple board meetings. I strongly wish to change that status quo in whatever way I can.”
Simran’s life is not all about her work, however. She draws strong boundaries to maintain a work-life balance and ensures she spends quality time with her family – both in India and in the US. “My husband and I block a few hours every day to spend time together – whether it is over a meal, or going out – these are non-negotiable. I also ensure I make time to work out and we go on hikes together. The mentorship I do through Successfully Yours is allocated its own dedicated time every weekend, via email and on the phone.”
Introspection is part of the agenda during the time she spends with herself. In conclusion, she says, “You have to find out who you are when you are not working. What is your value system and what do you believe in? These are questions I ask when I spend time with myself. It gives me clarity on where I want to be. Even though I don’t plan my career more than a year or two out, I have a fundamental sense of the values that guide my professional decisions. Also, I strongly believe in the power of networking and always tell people to reach out, ask questions and you will see that that is where the magic happens.”
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