Post
by Vindhya » September 4th, 2014, 12:36 pm
Name: Vindhya B.N.
Age: 29
Marital Status: Married (with a ten month old baby)
Qualification and Academics
❏ M.Sc (Biological Sciences), GPA of 4.25/5.0 [National University of Singapore, Singapore (Aug 2006- Dec 2008)]- As a Graduate Research Scholar, conducted full-time research on high impact projects and troubleshot problems as needed (M.Sc Thesis title: Crystal Structure Determination of Kremen1, Dickkopf1 and MeCP2)
❏ Bachelor of Engineering (Biotechnology), 84% aggregate [M.S Ramaiah Institute of Technology (Visvesvaraya Technological University) (June 2002- June 2006)]
❏ Class XII (PCME), 88% aggregate [ Mt Carmel College, Bangalore (June 2001- Apr 2002)]
❏ Class X (CBSE), 91% aggregate [ National Public School, Bangalore (June 2000- Apr 2001)]
GMAT Score
Overall Score 700 (Quant: 49; Verbal: 35; AWA: 5.0; IR: 5.0) (Test date: Aug 12, 2014)
Work Experience
Total no of years of Corporate Work experience: 4.5 yrs
Current Status: On maternity break (Jan 2014-till now)
Previous Experience:
Industry: Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical
Role 2 : Senior Executive, Project Management Office, Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited (Mar 2011-Dec 2013)
Key Responsibilities:
❏ Managed complete project profiles of drug discovery collaboration projects based out of USA, Europe and South East Asia ( big and mid sized companies) across diverse therapeutic areas like Oncology, Inflammation and Metabolic disorders
❏ Enabled seamless integration (with various functional departments including Scientific departments, Logistics, Finance, IPM and IT) of cross functional work-flow of the project activities/processes to ensure smooth execution of projects
❏ Acted as a key operational interface between external collaborators/Clients and internal stakeholders during the entire project life cycle
❏ Performed critical functions as a Project Manager which included the following:
● Project Planning (conducted Initial Kick off meetings)
● Project Execution (coordinated and tracked project actionable items and deliverables, provided timely communication of project status, issues and challenges to team members and Senior Project leaders including Directors, VPs and CXO’s of the company, enabled optimal resource allocation on assigned projects, RFP/Proposal evaluation, negotiation of contracts, coordination of purchase activities/service procurements and for export/ import of material with supply chain team & scientific teams for project execution)
● Project Monitoring and Control (Facilitated Project budgeting using bottom up approach, tracked project budget utilization on a regular basis and reported impact of variances, worked with the project team to identify and manage scientific, financial and commercial risks and scope changes on the project, reported project performance on a monthly basis using operational benchmark such as productivity metrics, capacity planning, project profitability, milestone visibility and timelines through the MIS report, Scheduled and facilitated Scientific/ Business Review Processes and Change Control meetings with Project teams on a regular basis to enable decision making by Senior Management on critical project issues)
● Project Closure (Archived Project documents and lessons learned, facilitated final acceptance and transfer of deliverables to the Client)
❏ Business Process Activities
● Was part of the core team in evaluating the development of Lab ticketing and Compound registration and database management software
● Co-lead the Project management team in continuous improvement processes of critical logistics (import and export shipment process) by collaborating with supply chain and scientific teams
● Was part of the review team for Six sigma implementation in the reduction of cycle time for material purchase
Role 1: Research Associate, Structural Biology Department, Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd, Bangalore (June 2009 –Feb 2011)
Key Responsibilities:
❏ Key contributor to the deliverables of two high valued Project Milestones by solving the Crystal structures of the target, helping in the establishment of a strong scientific rationale expediting the structure based drug discovery process
❏ Lead the development of in-house software tool to accelerate the screening of a library of potential hit molecules using critical structural parameters
❏ Constantly liasoned with cross functional teams to track compound progression to advanced stages of drug discovery and enabled smooth execution of activities within agreed budget and timelines
❏ Presented Project activity progress to the team and implemented suggested changes
❏ Documented Project learnings and transferred completed project deliverables to the respective teams
Industry: People’s Education Society Institute of Technology, Bangalore
Role: Visiting Faculty, Biotech Department (Feb-May 2009)
Key Responsibilities:
❏ Lectured and conducted laboratory sessions (Subject- Bioprocess Engineering) for semester 5 engineering students
❏ Designed, conducted and evaluated assessments/tests
❏ Mentored students and attended to informative queries about different career prospects in Biotechnology
Major Achievements at Work
❏ Performance Star Award, Aurigene Discovery Technologies limited (Oct-Dec 2012) for significant changes in Management Information System software (eg: information dashboards such as productivity metrics etc) to report the progress of projects to the Senior management (well appreciated by Sr Management)
❏ Project Manage of two novel oncology discovery projects (with critical clients in USA and Europe) which started from the Hit generation stage have successfully reached the pre-IND stage and in the process of getting IND approval.The two clients have really appreciated Project management for successful execution of projects within the triple constraints (Scope, Budget and Time) and have been returning customers to the company with new projects
❏ Appreciation from Senior Management for Project Management Module Development- Lead a team of 10 members in initiating, planning, designing and implementation (partly) of in-house integrated Project Management Software tool (specific to discovery R&D) to streamline workflow and data management and to track Project management related activities
❏ As a faculty of PESIT, mentored four-member student team in developing a full-fledged Business Proposal - “Development of Oral Cancer Diagnostics” for Business Planning Competition, BEST INDIA 2009 conducted by ABLE and DBT, which stood in the top 10%
Major Achievements outside Work
❏ Certified PMP Professional, PMI, USA (Aug 2013-2016)
❏ Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Professional (Aug 2012)
❏ Awarded NUS Graduate Research Scholarship from NUS, Singapore (Aug 2006- Dec 2008) (GRE score: 1360)
❏ Awarded 10th rank in Karnataka state for the BE course, Founder Chairman Award for Academic Excellence and Honorary Award from the Alumni Association (June 2002- June 2006)
Extracurricular Activities
❏ Took initiative in implementing Project management tools to help improve the productivity of scientific team members and to positively impact the project timelines. This was replicated by most team members from the PMO as a result of appreciation from Senior management
❏ Mentored and trained 4 new colleagues with regard to the responsibilities and workings of PMO
❏ Research Mentor for 4 students (Junior College, UROPS & Honors projects in Life Sciences), NUS, Singapore
❏ Teaching Assistant for under-graduate courses in Biochemistry and Structural biology (Group strength 40-50), NUS, Singapore
❏ As a graduate research scholar at NUS, Singapore, prepared research grant proposals for one project for Academic Research Fund (ARF) and Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) worth 2 million SGD by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore which stood among the top 5% for approval by the Review Committee
❏ As a Project Intern, R&D Unit, Biocon India Limited, Project ‘IN-105’ (currently is under Clinical trials phase II) (Dec 2005-Apr 2006), reported increased insulin yield (75% to 84%) and purity (95% to 98%) with an optimised purification strategy, an idea which was used for the next stage scale-up of insulin
❏ Successfully completed the 11-day National Himalayan trekking expedition (Saurkundi pass) organised by YHAI ( served as a team leader for a group of 6 children, aged 12-15 years)
❏ Organising committee member for Srigen speaker series at MSRIT
❏ Journal Club member at Dept of Biological Sciences at NUS
❏ Participated and Won intra and inter college level painting and collage competitions ( paint during free time as a hobby)
Career Goals
I have enjoyed and learned a lot being in the Project Management Office for close to 3 years. I would like to further my learning in other business aspects (marketing, finance, operations etc) to gain an overall understanding of ‘how businesses run?’
I would like to specialize in General management and Strategy and get into roles of General management (eg: Program/Portfolio manager).
My specific Question
1. I am from Biotech/Pharma Industry and have a good understanding of the industry. The reason behind doing MBA would be to enhance my understanding of business so that I can one day (say 7-10 years) down the line, take up Senior GM/Strategy roles. However, having said that, I also would like to get experience in a range of industries (eg: Healthcare, FMCG) to broaden my horizon. I am not too keen on narrowing my choice to only Pharma industry considering the job prospects in this sector in India. I also feel that exposure to a range of industries will enhance my current skill set and will enable me to be better in future roles.
I would like to understand how to chart out my career path to reach the roles that i have mentioned above (GM/Strategy)? I would like to understand more about the types of Gen Mgmt roles offered by industries coming to ISB. Also, what are the industry types that come in with such offers. Please share some details.
Thank You