Career Canvas (#2)
Our conversation with Tizil Saini: Strategy@CleanElectric and Ex-Consultant at Mckinsey
Hey there,
In our second conversation of Career Canvas series, meet Tizil Saini. He is currently leading the Strategy and Business functions at Clean Electric. Prior to this, Tizil gained valuable experience as a management consultant at McKinsey and was a part of the Graduate Rotation Program at JSW. He is an IIM Bangalore and IIT Kanpur alumnus.
Here is our conversation with him -
Can you tell me more about yourself ?
I'm originally from Haridwar, Uttarakhand. However I did not get to stay there much, owing to my father’s transferable job.. I stayed in five cities and changed around 8 schools. This introduced me to a lot of different cultures, social classes, cuisines, people, languages etc and I experienced India’s diversity first hand. This experience kind of tied me down to my homeland (in a good way) and probably was the reason why I never chose to migrate. . Sports and fitness also plays a huge role in my life and since every new school and city brought along with it a new sport, I became proficient at most of the sports we find around us. Later, I pursued civil engineering at IIT Kanpur, where I also picked up squash.
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What was the most memorable experience you had during your time at IITK? How did it shape your career aspirations?
My most memorable experience would definitely be bringing home the first ever Inter IIT gold medal in squash for IITK, and I also happened to be the captain for that year. Picking up one sport by a stroke of luck and pursuing it from scratch leading to big outcomes helped me see the power of compounding first hand. I played all the sports growing up, and probably spent much more time doing that in my childhood than at IITK, however focusing on 1 sport vs many was game-changing (quite literally xD). We as a team won 5 gold medals in inter-college events including Inter IIT, along with some personal accolades for me including reaching an India rank in top 50. This reinforced the concept of persistence and focus on a single area as opposed to diversifying and building optionality.
The thought process behind my career aspirations was helped by this concept of balancing between diversifying and building optionality vs compounding and focusing on one area. In the early stages of my career I spent a lot of time diversifying and building options, including the decision to pursue an MBA followed by a year in consulting. However now I can say I am doubling down and building a core expertise in one area, sector or function. Both the approaches have plenty of career options available and both have their pros and cons. Finding the balance between them which suits you and your personality is a largely personal choice but I would urge everyone to think about it with a long term lens.
After 2.5 years at JSW, you decided to pursue an MBA. What was the tipping point that made you say, ‘Alright, time to go back to school’?"
MBA and consulting were on my thoughts well before I graduated from IITK, and to be honest, by the end of the four year degree I really wanted to just go out there and gain some professional experience and live the so-called corporate life before I went back to academia. There was also this slight itch of probably pursuing an MBA abroad which definitely needed work experience however as I said I later decided I wanted to stay in India and not migrate as a personal choice. I also had an ISB YLP admit to go for an MBA two years down the line. And personally I felt 2-3 years was kind of the sweet spot and decided to join IIMB after managing to clear CAT. There’s a few reasons for this -
Resume - You’ve got a good loaded resume with few years of experience which helps in your B school recruitment cycle
Learning - The courses in MBA would make more sense after having worked in business roles and it definitely amplifies the learning
Deciding on career paths - Work experience can also help you be better equipped with a sense of which sector to pursue based on your liking, aspirations and personality
IIM Bangalore is known for some high-pressure situations. What was your go-to stress buster during the MBA?
It definitely gets hectic, with summer placements, weekly assignments, projects, and exams all piling up. I would say being back in a college environment with an entire cohort going through the same grind, along with many who’ve accomplished it before us is generally encouraging and makes it easier to cope.
"Consulting is often described as a high-octane job. What was the most unexpected aspect of consulting life that you encountered?"
I was there for around a year or so. So I wouldn't say I've had a very long tenure. In that context, I think the most unexpected aspect for me was the lengths to which the firm or teams would go to in order to help the clients achieve their goals. It is just no more the give advice and vanish kind of scenario which is generally poked for fun in the public discourse. Every strategy related conversation includes the implementation and having worked on some good implementation pieces in my time I could see how there was a lot of focus on on-ground impact.
What does clean electric do? And how is it going? How do you see your skills from McKinsey being applied in this new role?
Clean Electric is a battery technology company that designs and manufactures advanced lithium ion batteries equipped with 12-min rapid charging, longer life and unrivalled safety. Our key differentiator is our proprietary thermal management system called Direct Contact Liquid Cooling (DCLC) and our cell-to-pack design along with advanced charging algorithms which enable all of this.
My new role involves working on strategy implementation, setting up processes related to scaling up and focusing on business ops. I think some skills directly translating here from my time at consulting are data-backed problem solving and working in cross functional teams with a good level of communication and coordination. Consulting also gives you the opportunity to understand spectrums of work - from a strategic CEO level of thought process to a tactical level of deciding what your spreadsheet columns will be, that training of working with depth or breadth of a function is also quite useful here I would say.
How do you balance your work commitments with your personal life? Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of work?
To maintain balance, I try to prioritise some personal activities like working out or dining out with friends once in a while, which help keep up the energy levels while also give a sense of some personal progress and fulfilment outside of work. Sports and long drives are another big outlet for me.
Some Blitz Questions -
Best thing you watched recently -
The Spy starring Sacha Baron Cohen, based on a true story of an Israeli spy from the period around the six day war.
Best thing you read recently -
Not recently but one good article fits in context of this convo - The Trouble with Optionality by Prof Mihir Desai at Harvard
The Trouble with Optionality | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)
Advice for people starting their career in consulting or startups -
Solve for what you enjoy doing and for people and an environment where work does not feel like a burden at all. That would really align a lot of your outcomes in your favour.
Avoid excessive analysis and calculations when making major career or life decisions, and as cliche as it may sound, do what your heart says. No RoI calculations made anyone happier in the present than what they already were.
If you liked our conversation with Tizil, please leave a comment on what resonated with you the most and also we would love to hear from you. Feedback on how we are doing is always welcome!