You arrive in every country you move to, twice. First time is in your imagination. This is the version you have assemble from other people's accounts, institutional reputation, cultural exports, and your own projection of what life there will feel like. You tend to relish the positives and minimise the uncertainty – “Que sera sera!” – you tell yourself. Finally the day comes when you arrive in the new country which you intend to make your home in at least for a while and that

At some point in the careers of many life sciences students and professionals a question surfaces that is deceptively simple to ask and genuinely difficult to answer: should I pursue further education abroad? For some, the question arrives early, as an undergraduate weighing whether to apply to a Master’s/PhD programme overseas. For others, as it was for my case, it comes mid-career, as a working professional wondering whether an international degree could open doors that the

I trained as a physician in India and completed residency training in clinical pharmacology. My first industry role was, predictably, in Medical Affairs. Over the years that followed I moved through clinical research, into commercial functions, moved to the US, completed an MBA, advised numerous large and small lifescience companies on commercial and clinical strategy and eventually built a consulting practice at the intersection of life sciences strategy and career developme

As I rose through the ranks in the industry and later in consulting, I realised certain things about how organisations function that they don’t teach you in business school and can only be learnt through experience. While AI has been variously credited with overturning the workplace pyramid, causing it to bulge in the middle, and abolishing it altogether, most organisations still have the same structure – a bottom layer, a middle managerial layer, and a senior leadership laye

How do people make decisions? On the surface, this seems like a simple if unbounded question that cannot be answered meaningfully without context and boundaries. “It depends.” would be the most common answer and it would be the right one. What does it depend on then? Simply put, decisions are typically downstream from choices. Choices are downstream from situation and objective, which in turn depend on the preceding decisions made by self and by others. Consequently, decision

A Welcome Note for Advanced Degree Students Considering Consulting Careers Assessing Your Fit for Consulting When considering a career in consulting, advanced lifescience degree students often question whether it is the right path for them. Unlike traditional lab-based industry roles, or those focused primarily on desk work, consulting positions can appear less rigid, more unpredictable, and demanding in both difficulty and time commitment. While this perception does have mer

Your Essential Cheat-Sheet for Navigating Industry Roles and Opportunities Rather than following conventional routes, my career has been a winding journey. Starting in medical school and practising as a clinician, I later specialised in clinical drug research, taking on various positions within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, from research and development to commercialisation. Eventually, I found myself consulting for the industry across multiple functions and domains

Pursuing a PhD at a leading, well-funded university is a remarkable privilege, offering the opportunity to contribute to advances at the frontier of human knowledge and ability. Typically, such research culminates in impactful publications, an engaging thesis, or secures a coveted postdoctoral position. Occasionally, though less frequently than one might hope, research discoveries can be developed into valuable business ventures. Yet this transition is fraught with hurdles. B

The process of cold job applications has always been paradoxical: simple to submit, yet notoriously challenging to generate meaningful results. In the past, a targeted approach backed by thorough research, tailored CVs, and carefully crafted cover letters gave applicants a fair chance to stand out. Sometimes, a personalised note to a recruiter, even if the email address had to be guessed, made all the difference. The arrival of LinkedIn’s easy-apply features marked a turning

I only realised this several years later, but when I was training to be a medical doctor I did not have to think once about what kind of work I would be doing after I completed my training. Granted, one must think at some point about what area of specialisation one chooses, but that too was more akin to choosing from a set bundle of options rather than really exploring what all the options are. As my career trajectory took me further away from the clearly marked racetrack of

Over a decade ago, I faced a critical decision which turned out to be a major inflection point for the rest of my career. Fresh off the factory that pushed out thousands of newly minted physicians in India each year, I needed to find the answer to the question, "What next?". For most of my graduating class, it was a relatively straightforward equation: take the medical post-graduate entrance exams, obtain a score high enough to secure your place in a highly coveted residency