Hi there! My name is Jaanhvi Vaidya, and I’m a rising 2nd year at UCLA Anderson. I went to the Claremont Colleges for undergrad where I majored in Neuroscience and minored in Computer Science. Prior to Anderson I was a Management Consulting Manager for Accenture’s Health & Public Service practice. After 4 years in consulting, I wanted to experience a different side of healthcare, feel like I was making more of an impact on people’s lives, and be closer to my STEM roots. I was also tired of my nomad lifestyle and really wanted to get a dog! So I decided to go to business school to pursue my goals of directly impacting healthcare as a Product Manager at a health tech company and becoming a dog mom. 

I specifically chose Anderson because of the proximity to LA’s booming tech and entrepreneurial ecosystem, the Business Creation Option capstone program, and the people. Even before I had accepted my spot in the Class of 2021, everyone was so willing to share success – something that hasn’t changed, and even helped me get my internship! This summer, I’m interning as a Product Manager at Verana Health, a healthcare technology startup based in San Francisco, CA, where I’m working to define and deliver a scalable product that helps the company move away from the custom analytics service that we deliver to an interactive, engaging data experience. Although the company is headquartered in SF, I’m fully remote, so I flew to Kentucky with my dog, Eevee, to be with my family for the summer.

Every day at a startup is exciting and different, but here’s a peek into one of mine! 

7:30 AM – After snoozing for 20 minutes, I roll out of bed to start my morning routine. It gets pretty hot & humid in Kentucky, so if I don’t walk Eevee soon neither of us will be very happy. By the time I come back to my room, she has sneakily jumped up on my bed and looks like she’d happily snooze longer, but as soon as I put my socks on she’s racing towards the door.

8:45 AM – I feed Eevee and head upstairs. While I drink some tea, I respond to Anderson emails and do a little bit of work for my role as President of the Women’s Business Connection. 

9:30 AM – Time for a workout! I love boxing and bought a BoxUnion digital membership during quarantine so I could still get my fix. Fun fact – BoxUnion was founded by a female Anderson alum! Gotta support our #FemaleFounders

10:30 AM – After showering, I head over to my home office and start setting things up for the day. Most of my coworkers are on Pacific time so no one else is online yet, but I’m doing a demo today so I want to get everything ready.

11:00 AM – Demo time! I walk a potential customer through our MVP to show off the product’s capabilities, and hopefully get them to buy it. We hear some really positive validating feedback, so fingers crossed! 

11:30 AM – Time for my team’s daily standup. We use our standups to talk about what’s on the docket for the day, any blockers we’re facing, and ‘hot topics’ which can be anything from big company/industry news to ideation about ways that we can improve things like data quality and ingestion. 

12:00 PM – Today I have a ton of 1:1 meetings with key internal people like the Head of Marketing, Head of Finance, Head of Design, and one of our lead Clinical Data Scientists. My work touches most parts of the company, so when I first started my internship I scheduled recurring check-ins to make sure I have consistent buy-in 

3:00 PM – Verana hosts biweekly company-wide Lunch & Learns with our medical team and today’s is about how artificial intelligence is enhancing ophthalmology practice and research. I leave my home office to check on Eevee and give her a treat. She runs into the room and I don’t have the heart to make her leave.

4:00 PM – I amazingly have a block of time to do some ‘heads down work’ – I work a bit on a forecasting model for my product, connect with a developer about some functionality we’re thinking about, and update a wireframe with a new design.

6:00 PM – I feed Eevee then hop on my daily check-in with my manager to debrief on the day and catch up on any questions I might have or updates that may be pertinent to my product. I wrap up by going through my notes from the day and synthesizing into action items for the following day.

7:00 PM – I close my laptop for the day and go upstairs to eat dinner and take Eevee on a long walk with the rest of my family. Once we’re back home, I always intend to do something productive like read a book or do some case prep to stay sharp, but in reality I usually turn on whatever basketball game is on or lose track of time on TikTok and turn in around midnight, ready to do it all over again! 

ABOUT JAANHVI

• Hometown:Thousand Oaks, CA
• Undergraduate Studies: Computational Neuroscience, Claremont McKenna College
• Pre-Anderson: Management Consulting Manager – Accenture
• MBA Summer Internship: Product Manager – Verana Health 
• Post-MBA Goals: Product Management/Strategy – Healthcare Technology
• Leadership@Anderson: President – Women’s Business Connection, VP of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Admissions Ambassador Corps, VP of Fundraising & Sponsorships – Challenge 4 Charity
• Activities@Anderson: AnderTech IPT Coach, Board Fellows, Healthcare Business Association, Entrepreneur’s Association, NetImpact, Wine Club, Black Business Students Association Ally, Out@Anderson Ally