Lessons from Wharton’s highly successful alumni
The latest Wharton alumni magazine caught my eyes.
The cover page stated “40 under 40” in 200 font size.
It featured success stories of 40 of their successful alumni who are under 40 years.
I read and re-read their stories as I wanted to understand the common threads across these 40 people.
What have they achieved?
How old are they?
What is their favorite professional moment in the last year?
Who are their role models?
What made them successful?
What have they achieved?
2/3 of them are C-level people (CEOs, Co-founders, COOs, President’s etc.)
1/3 of them got into entertainment, journalism, government etc.
How old are they?
2/3 of them finished their MBA in the last 10 to 15 years
1/3 of them are less than 10 years after the MBA
What is their favorite professional moment in the last year?
Mostly they point to a major turning point in their career:
– Meeting an investor
– Media attention
– Social impact
– Successful launch of an initiative
Who are their role models?
The top category was parents, grandparents and family.
Surprisingly, only a couple of them mentioned famous personalities and no one identified the same person.
Many also pointed to the leaders they ran into where they worked.
Note: Just so there is no confusion, only 2 of the 40 were born with a silver spoon and may have benefitted from that.
What made them successful?
Overwhelming winner is the partnership they established with other people – their team, husband, family, generous mentors, meeting people who became investor etc.
The next winner is the their core – perseverance, ambition, hard work, relentless dedication and passion, self-discipline
Let me quote a few of them to move from statistics to the person himself/herself. This is their response to “why so successful?”
Joyce Meng, Co-Founder and CEO of Givology
“Hard work with purpose, not giving up and not compromising the original vision for what is ‘comfortable’ or ‘easily reachable’. Even if you don’t know something today, you can learn it. So many studies have empirically shown that self-discipline trumps intelligence, IQ and talent in predicting success”
Ben Nelson, Founder of San Francisco’s Minerva project
“My parents brought me up to analyze the world around me from first principles and not take conventional wisdom as given. Outside of sheer luck (of which there was plenty), nearly every positive event in my career can be traced to that upbringing’
Nat Turner, Co-Founder & CEO of Flatiron Health
“Meeting the right people early on, including future co-founders, advisers and investors”
Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder & CEO of Snapdeal
“Our rock star team is the reason for Snapdeal’s success. In addition, it helps to be objective about situations whether they are good or bad, and build a higher purpose-driven institution”
What thoughts come up for you when you read this article?
by Nirmal Chandrasekaran, March 22, 2015