Who are you and what do you do for work?

My name is Suchi Ganesh and I am the managing director of AviLuna Consulting. I started my healthcare career as an Occupational Therapist and have worked throughout the care continuum in the USA and in Canada.

Prior to founding my own firm, I worked at Deloitte as a manager in their Digital Care practice and at KPMG as a Senior Consultant in their Healthcare Solutions practice. Some of my key achievements include working on the COVID-19 Ontario Health Laboratory Operations project where I built a testing capacity model which provided a future focused view on how the province of Ontario would scale up COVID-19 tests. I was a part of the team that helped the province scale up testing capacity from ~10,000 tests a day to >50,000 tests a day.

Another key achievement was at Deloitte where I helped a large health system transform their Health Information System from an older legacy system to Epic by leading their change management. As a direct consequence of the change management support we provided, the client was able to go live with ‘Zero’ adverse care delivery and patient safety events.

I enjoyed my time as a management consultant enough to foray into doing it solo.

How did you hear about your job? What made it appealing to you? What steps did you take to learn more about the job?

I heard about management consulting while I was working on getting my graduate degree in health administration. My colleagues felt that I would be naturally good at consulting based on my presentations. I was drawn to it due to the diversity of experiences a consulting career offered - the ability to work on meaningful projects that helped health systems and health authorities was a big pull. While there weren’t a lot of similarities between what I was doing as a stroke and brain injury specialist OT and the day-to-day of management consulting, I was hooked.

The first step was understanding the role. I researched what it meant and spoke to people already working as consultants. I ensured I got information about the good and bad things, so I didn’t step into consulting wearing rose-tinted glasses. I ‘cold-emailed’ people some of whom were kind enough to respond and had a consultant friend connect me with a contact who was working as a manager at KPMG. The manager spoke with me and felt that it would be good for me to interview for a role as a Senior Consultant. I would advise people interested in consulting to approach networking with the intention of learning more and building connections. I spoke of why I wanted to be a consultant and how I thought I could make a difference. I prepped for the interview extensively – I mock-interviewed with buddies, practiced cases, and referred to ‘Case in Point’ for my prep. I was – to put it mildly – obsessed with getting in. I tuned out nay-sayers, and surrounded myself with people who were encouraging and honest.

Describe your interview process and how you prepared for it.

The behavioral interview was over the phone. I had a case interview but did not have to develop a presentation and I wasn’t provided with data either. This threw me to be honest – I was after all prepared to work on a full case interview. The case interview was a panel interview. I referred to free case studies from the BCG website, I studied ‘Case in Point’ from cover to cover, I had consultant friends quiz me and I practiced quite a bit.

The interview process varies – I would advise interested candidates to do some research and remain agile enough to modify their approach. For Deloitte I had an interviewer led case, a case presentation on a topic provided to me previously and a behavioral round. I would recommend you enjoy the process – you’ll learn a lot regardless of the outcome and form connections!

I think most interviewers knowingly or unknowingly are trying to assess if you’ll fit into the practice. Honestly – you don’t employ too many of the techniques you prepare for the interview in day-to-day consulting. Listening to client needs and responding sensibly are more important than applying the frameworks!

Describe the first 6 months on the job. What did you learn? What was the transition like?

My first 6 months at KPMG felt rocky. It was a huge adjustment from a culture standpoint, and I was one of very few immigrant women of colour when I had joined. All managers and senior managers had favourites and the environment felt like a high school clique. My work as a clinician was not valued as highly as I had hoped it would be and I spent the first 4 months waiting to be staffed on a project because my practice had not sold a lot of healthcare work. In my 4th month, I was staffed on a very relevant project that helped me prove myself as a consultant of substance. Here are some things that I wish I knew before that I had to learn the hard way:

1. Negotiate your pay. Ask for what you think you are worth and research the market average for the level and the role.

2. Do NOT undersell your skills or ability. Be confident and vocal about what you can do once you join the firm. A little shameless self-promotion does not hurt.

3. Do NOT say yes to everything that comes your way – be strategic about the work you choose to do for the firm (business development and practice development) and be open about the client work that you take on.

4. You will need to be your own advocate – you may luck out and find a mentor who is in your corner and believes in your future. Typically, though, people are busy, and you need to push for your own growth.

5. Be yourself. Authentically, entirely, unapologetically yourself. You may not “fit in”, but trying to do so at the expense of authenticity feels like a poorly fitted pair of shoes.

6. Work hard, be humble, and remain open to learning new things – building decks, spreadsheets, content for clients, etc. just don’t come easily.

My biggest disadvantage was being a new immigrant and being subjected to preconceived notions about my skill sets. I was hired into the ‘People and Change’ practice which is a generalist skill although my expertise was in healthcare which was a mismatch. This made being staffed on a project very difficult at the outset. Once on my first project, it was very clear that I had a lot of value to add given my experience in healthcare and hospital operations.

What does a typical day look like at your job?

The answer to this one is – it depends! If you are juggling a very busy client engagement or two, you are almost entirely consumed by it. If you find that you want to work some more or have the bandwidth, you help bring in business by responding to ‘Request for Proposals’ which are ways that clients solicit consulting services. If you want to position yourself as a well-rounded consultant who is ripe for growth – you do a bit of everything! Firm activities – social, business focused, or learning are a good way to demonstrate your value. Personally, I enjoyed coaching and mentoring. I would say, if you are new to consulting, embrace the hard work and the long hours. You learn a lot about firm economics, business development, executive communications, firm politics (icky, but necessary) by working on the ‘side of the desk’ stuff.

At the outset of my KPMG career – I travelled to the client site ALL THE TIME. It was grueling and it’s hard to catch a break from people you work with all the time if you want to separate your free time from work time. It becomes important to like the people you work with because you are with them all the time on an engagement. On the plus side – your meals are paid for and you can make a lot of impact by being with the client in person.

After COVID – things shifted drastically. Clients didn’t want to pay for frequent consultant travel and most people adopted a ‘Hybrid’ work approach. Go in to work for high-value collaboration sessions and work from home otherwise. Personally, I prefer working from home. The commute is expensive from a time and money standpoint, and I am way more productive without the distractions. In a nutshell, you do you if your firm supports this!

In terms of working together – you do this whether you’re working for yourself as an independent contractor or for a firm like KPMG or Deloitte. You can work with a team on a proposal and work with an entirely different team on a project. You have a performance manager outside of all of this. You must learn to work with a wide variety of individuals and leaders and do it well to succeed in consulting. I loved working at Deloitte, and I was quite sad about leaving my colleagues and my support system there. I am still in touch with my colleagues from both KPMG and Deloitte. I owe these two places a lot.

What was your original career path?

I loved science and biology and liked the idea of working in healthcare. This meant I automatically gravitated toward working as a clinician. I studied in India until I was 22. Being a very competitive country and on account of my own financial limitations – I couldn’t pursue medicine as I originally planned. I settled for Occupational Therapy. It involved 4 years of undergraduate studies with many of the same subjects as medicine – i.e. Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology, Microbiology, Psychology, etc. We also had patient care hours throughout and finally 6 months at the end in an internship with different practice areas. I also need a graduate degree for licensure in the states and I have a graduate degree in Occupational Therapy as well. Occupational therapy is a healthcare profession that involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities. The end-goal is to get a patient to be independent in their activities and return home – the approach in Occupational Therapy is to use functional activities and movements to help patients get there. I worked in senior care, chronic illness care, acute inpatient rehab, and in outpatient clinics. I did this for a decade before I decided to transition into doing something else in healthcare.

What motivated you to change career paths?

The first and main reason for me wanting to transition out was the complete lack of career progression and financial growth as an OT in the US. I was burnted out and I did not see myself working in patient care long term. It was enjoyable for a bit, but the financial downsides and the number of external factors that impact your ability to function at the top of your license were disappointing and the job ceased to be enjoyable. I hit 30 and I was at this inflection point and decided to go back to school for my second graduate degree.

The best option would be for me to pick a course that leveraged my experience and allowed me to pivot in a way that I could still work in the industry I loved but do something different. My biggest barrier was that I was on a work permit that didn’t allow me to switch careers or become a full-time student in the states. I applied for an executive program, was accepted, and regularly flew from Seattle to Michigan for a few days each month for 2 years. I started the program in 2016, graduated in 2018 – the whole time also working a full-time job- and got my PMP certification as well. The only thing that drove me was ‘Tell me I can’t, and I’ll show you I will’. I had to make it against all odds. Failure was not an option for an immigrant. I had a lot of arm chair critics cautioning me - I tuned them out.

What advice do you have for someone looking to make a similar career change?

There are 3 things I always tell others:

1. Do what you’re doing for the right reasons. Nothing is permanent – try it out and know that if it’s not for you, it’s not the end of the world.

2. Be adventurous! Change is good! If you fail – you learn something that can help you succeed later!

3. If you are unhappy but don’t do anything to change the status quo – you are the only one to blame.

How can people contact you if they have more questions?

Find me on LinkedIn! If I have the time – I will try and help. If I don’t, I’ll let you know honestly.