Deepshikha Ganjoo

Currently working as director of transformation at Charles Schwab, Deepshikha Ganjoo has had a slightly ‘unconventional’ career journey compared to some more commonly heard success stories.

Career

Ganjoo grew up in India, where students choose a ‘stream’ in 10th grade. The streams include science, commerce, and humanities. This is done to tailor education in 11th and 12th grade to what a student will study in college and hopefully better prepare them for success in the future.

While this system can be helpful for some who know exactly what they want to study, other students may feel unprepared to make such a decision.

“I feel that is too early for a young kid, but unfortunately, that's the education system,” says Ganjoo.

Although she was interested in biology, Ganjoo ultimately chose to focus primarily on math and computer science, which led to her early career as an engineer.

“Looking back, there are some people who are born engineers who like fixing things and who have an aptitude for that kind of thing,” says Ganjoo. “I'm not that person, but I went down that path and I did well in my engineering.”

After high school, Ganjoo attended the Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi and got her bachelor’s degree in technology. During college, she discovered that she had a passion for hardware engineering, a specific type of engineering that focuses on designing and developing chips in computer systems.

Following college, Ganjoo decided to get a master’s degree in hardware engineering at the University of Southern California. Afterward, she took her first job as an engineer at Intel, a multinational technology company.

After working in chip design for 5 years, Ganjoo felt drawn to a different aspect of the computer production process.  

“I wanted to get involved on the business side and make the decisions on what the products should look like and what the customers want,” said Ganjoo.

Traveling back to India, Ganjoo received her MBA at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Then, she got her start in business as a consultant at Deloitte before switching over to the technology platform Intuit, where she became a Senior Strategy Manager.

Later, Ganjoo was offered her current job at the financial services company where she has worked for 4 years.

Challenges

Shifting industries is a daunting task, and one that Ganjoo says was a significant challenge that she faced in her career.

“It’s always hard to go from one industry to another. Every time you go to a new workplace, you have to establish your credibility again.”

Another difficult component of switching careers is catching up to coworkers and competitors who have been in the industry since the beginning. Ganjoo found that asking questions, even the ‘dumb ones,’ is the only way to properly learn and understand an industry.

Finally, Ganjoo says one of the most important lessons she has learned is that you must look out for yourself in corporate settings.

“Instead of just doing the work, you have to show people that you've done the work. And if you don't do that, other people will take credit for your work, or you will not be noticed, and you won’t progress.”

Earning several degrees and working for many reputable companies, Ganjoo has had an undeniably successful career, even though her route to success had a few turns. She shows that following a passion and staying dedicated to improving can eventually be very rewarding.