Meet Kanika Vaidya — Generalist Banker at Evercore & Old Ezra Vice President of Investment Banking
“Seeing several women in top positions, seeing women of color, seeing women of color in top positions, and seeing men from different backgrounds: all really important things to me. It also didn’t hurt that Evercore has a tennis tournament every summer and I felt like this was the place for me.””
It’s three in the morning and Kanika Vaidya is sending me an email with her 7th round of edits on my resume. At 3 A.M., in command of 100 anxious MBA students trying to get jobs in investment banking, Kanika’s attention to detail remains meticulous. Kanika Vaidya is a force of nature, but for a wet behind the ears MBA candidate at Cornell Johnson recruiting investment banking in the fall of 2020, Kanika Vaidya is God.
Evercore is ranked #4 in the world on Vault’s list of most prestigious investment banks. For independent M&A shops on Wall Street running lean deal teams, it’s #1. Kanika got her offer at Evercore early. When she ‘burst upon the scene’ (tennis publication quote) at 13, she was ranked as the seventh best tennis player in her age group in India, she matriculated at Columbia University at the age of 17. After two years of professional tennis, injury forced her early retirement to investment banking.
As a 29 former U.S. Army Ranger Captain, it feels completely natural to take orders from this fast-talking 25 year old. I’ve only met maybe three leaders who I’d trust to pull off an impossible mission — commanders who never get lost, and who seem destined for ‘a senior position in the corporation’, as we’d say in the military. It’s always attention to detail that sets them apart. Their soldiers feel comfortable around them: It’s that warm glow of competency. It’s that good-natured love of the game. It’s the sense that they would sacrifice themselves for the unit. Two of those leaders are in hulking special operations commandos, and the 3rd is Kanika.
So it was a pleasure to sit down for an interview with Kanika, and to learn a bit more about one of the leaders that make Old Ezra at Cornell Johnson great.
Kanika on winning tennis titles in India and coming to Columbia University at 17:
It was a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice, as one can imagine. Even in the juniors, before I went to Columbia, I was constantly balancing school with tennis. I knew my schedule, day in and day out, and felt like a well oiled machine. There was no time to waste and I think, thankfully, my personality also fed into that. I love the structure, and I still do.
I think that experience and attitude helped me when I was going into college where no one is telling you your deadlines, and I'd been trained to make sure everything was done ahead of time. It was hard at first since I came to college at 17 and was younger than most of my classmates. However, transitioning from an individual mindset to a team mindset on a college tennis team was a great change for me because I had all my teammates behind me, rooting for me, and it just fueled me to be the best version of myself to help my team.
It was a process. I learned a lot, and I continued to grow through college. Going into college I was very introverted but Columbia challenged me to embrace new experiences, opened up my network, and helped me carry myself more confidently.
Kanika on her two years as a professional tennis player after graduating from Columbia:
When I turned pro, I tapped into the same mindset of being extremely structured and working diligently. I was traveling alone a lot of the time and it really was not glamorous in any way. It's very tiring, lonely, and when you lose, you have to get back up every time. It was difficult but I always had to remember: I've got a match tomorrow, I have to focus on doing my best rather than dwell on the past. That taught me to rely on myself because I didn't have my dad or my coach with me. I had to tell myself: It's okay, you got this. All my experiences leading up to Johnson, helped me stay focused and succeed during recruiting.
Kanika on what has allowed her to succeed where others have failed:
I think everyone functions differently. The way I function is: I make sure I know when all my deadlines are, and then I make sure to lay out the process to complete everything ahead of time to minimize stress. I don't like doing things last minute. It is definitely something I notice in group projects when I'm trying to put a meeting on people’s calendars three weeks ahead of schedule.
But that's how I function. Using that kind of structure, figuring out when things need to be completed and putting aside time for everything to be done. At the same time, I am learning to change in response to other people as well and do what is best for everyone in the team. I think it's helpful when everyone is willing to communicate on what they can and can’t do, so everyone is on the same page. I would say that communication and understanding everyone’s strengths in a team is critical to achieving your goals.
Kanika on finding the balance between pushing the team and keeping people happy:
You don't want to be that person that's pushing people to do things, but I also think that understanding where everyone is coming from, and what their goals are for that project is really helpful. I still don't know how to function with GND [Grade Non Disclosure]. For me, it’s 100% for everything. I do my best on whatever I can control and that is all I can ask of myself. I've had great experiences so far, and always had a good product come out as a group, so I have no complaints.
Kanika on injury, leaving pro tennis, and the decision to head to business school:
I always knew I wanted to go pro after college, but getting an education was really important to me. I'm glad I focused on that, because injuries come and go, and you can't really decide definitively how many years you will play for. Your body does what it does, and you have to deal with that. So having that backup plan of having an education is critical.
I went pro after I graduated, and unfortunately, I was very injury prone. I feel like I had more to give on court and achieve more, but my body had other plans and that’s how life turns out sometimes. No matter how much I’d like to control everything, there are always unknowns that life throws at us. Adapting to those moments is where we build character. I am forever grateful for the experiences I've had because they shaped me into who I am today. I still love competing and I really miss it. It's funny, because I've been having weird dreams recently where I think I’m competing in a tennis tournament only to wake up and remember that I’m at Cornell. I continue to fuel my competitive spirit in the gym by doing CrossFit six times a week because I love challenging myself. I don't enjoy sitting idly in my apartment.
When I hurt my shoulder by tearing a muscle, I took a cortisone shot, but unfortunately it didn't heal. I had the choice of having surgery and then waiting a year and hoping things would heal or move forward. It took me some time to make the decision to move forward because tennis was an integral part of my life since I was a kid. Even when I did make the decision, it wasn't easy to come to terms with it, because I kept feeling like I had more to give. But when your body hits its breaking point, there is no point trying to push it further and risk something worse happening. That’s when I decided to pursue my MBA.
I always knew I wanted to get an MBA, I just thought I would be a little older. Being able to use everything I learned before coming to an MBA has been really helpful, and getting the opportunity to continuously learn from my classmates who are more experienced than me has been incredible and I'm very grateful for that.
Kanika on the decision to go into banking:
When I applied to Cornell, I had not decided on recruiting for banking just yet. It's actually through my internships prior to arriving at Cornell that I realized my brain functions on a very quantitative level. I did an internship at a boutique Investment Bank in Singapore. I really enjoyed learning from the associates and VPs and learning about a variety of sectors. Learning the intricacies of companies and what made each one succeed was fascinating to me.
So coming into Johnson during preterm was when I finally realized I wanted to pursue banking.
Kanika on the key to recruiting successfully:
I didn’t have any traditional corporate experience coming to Johnson, and definitely no hard finance experience per-se so the Old Ezra guide was my treasure chest of knowledge and I was constantly reviewing it. I wanted to make sure, going into any interview that no one would question my technical knowledge [technical banking interview questions like calculating Free Cash Flow to the Firm].
I didn’t want it to be that I would miss out on an opportunity because my technicals let me down. I wanted them to know that I put in the work for it to become a strength, and I definitely got pushed hard on my technical skills at every interview, but I expected that going in. For me personally, Old Ezra helped a lot with the base; the club provided structure and gave me the resources to succeed.
Kanika on Evercore:
Coming in, I didn't know what bank I wanted, because I didn't really know a lot about the sector. I think through my conversations with 2nd years, as well as through the corporate presentations, I figured out what my checklist was and where I could see myself working, and that really helped me narrow it down.
As I started to meet more bankers, Evercore was a bank where everyone I met I connected with, and everyone I met had a different background. I felt like I was constantly learning, and I would be able to learn from them if I were to go back full time.
So Evercore became one of my top choices throughout the process. There were still other great banks that I had good experiences with, so it was definitely a hard decision. When I got the early offer from Evercore, I took a week to think about it. I didn't want to rush into anything, and just take the first offer that I got. However, I realized that I could see myself at Evercore long term.
The culture was something that really stood out to me. Seeing several women in top positions, seeing women of color, seeing women of color in top positions and seeing men from different backgrounds: All really important things to me. It also didn’t hurt that Evercore has a tennis tournament every summer and I felt like this was the place for me.
I wish you all [Johnson’s Class of 2022] had that opportunity to go into the city, because that helped me better understand what the people were like, seeing them in the office. It helped me narrow it down.
Kanika on what she learned at Johnson that she hadn’t picked up previously:
The finance aspect. I learned so much. It was a massive learning curve for me. It still is. I'm constantly learning as I'm reading the news and learning more about deals that are happening. I personally think the IBI [Cornell Johnson’s Investment Banking Immersion Program] helped me a lot, because going in, I had no idea what we were going to be doing in the summer or full time. Drew [Pascarella, Associate Dean for MBA programs] really helped us, he made us flounder for a little while in the sense of allowing us to figure something out rather than being handed all the answers. But, you know, that's going to happen as a Summer Associate as well — sometimes people are really busy and you just get handed the deck. They don't always have the time to guide you through it all.
So over the summer I would reach out to whoever I thought would be able to give me two minutes, and that helped, but there were times when I had to figure it out myself, and the IBI experience really helped me figure it out. Getting the chance to be the VP of IB [Old Ezra Vice President of Investment Banking] helped me grow as a leader as I was managing 100+ students and that was definitely a new experience.
Managing you all [Cornell Johnson’s Class of 2022] plus coordinating with bankers, and making sure we didn't make any mistakes during the process that would affect you all was really important to Arthur [Choekas, Old Ezra Co-President of Investment Banking] and I. We really wanted to make sure, even if there were mistakes and they were not our fault, we would take the blame. We just wanted you all to succeed. We didn't want any bankers finding one little issue where they thought: We don't want that person, because of that one little issue. We would step in and take the blame.
Being on Zoom doesn't help. I think I grew a lot there too. I think your class [Johnson Class 2022] was so strong, you guys have so many CFA’s [Certified Financial Accountants], CPA’s [Certified Public Accountants], and people with finance backgrounds, that learning from you all was great. I'm actually very thankful for the experiences I’ve had at Johnson. I would have loved for us not to be in lockdown for most of my MBA experience, but that being said, you can't control that. I think what was available has really helped me grow personally, and I enjoyed it.
Kanika on why she chose a generalist program (as opposed to an industry specialized program like industrials):
In banking you're constantly learning, and I wanted a generalist platform because I wanted to be able to learn about a variety of sectors and see what really piqued my interest.
When I speak to full time bankers, who have spent many years in the industry, they still talk about how they are constantly learning new things. Learning about sectors from the inside and seeing how one company can disrupt everything and heavily impact a market is fascinating. It's great to read the macro aspect in the news, but to really understand things intricately is incredible and being able to see potential in companies when others can’t is a skill.
I also really want to build a foundation for myself, for whatever I want to do in the future. And I think that banking is going to help me do that. At the end of the day, no matter what track you're in, whether it’s marketing or finance or tech, you have to understand the numbers. That's how you make any important decision.
Kanika on community impact and founding Play It Forward:
For me, one of the big things was having an impact on the community. So, I started a program called Play It Forward last year in January, and the whole point was to be able to teach elementary school children in Ithaca from underserved neighborhoods tennis. I actually managed to do that for a few months. I held a bake sale as a fundraiser in order to get all the equipment needed. My classmates and people at Pallas (Crossfit gym in Ithaca) were incredible and really supported me with the fundraiser.
Unfortunately it [Play It Forward] got shut down because of COVID, which is sad, because I was really enjoying getting to know those kids and learning from them. They didn’t know how to play, but always brought so much excitement and energy. I plan on finding some ways to also get involved with the community when I'm in New York City. Even if we have crazy schedules, it's really about prioritizing what's important, and making the time for it.
Kanika talks about the stress and burnout people sometimes associate with banking:
You do see a lot of people burning out, and sometimes the work isn't the most stimulating work if you're just sitting there moving around logos. The hours are long, but we sign up for that. This is why the big thing was culture wherever I went, because I didn’t want to get burnt out while being miserable. I could still get burnt out while being happy, but at least I would be surrounded by people that aren't treating me like a cog, I'll actually be part of the system, and inputting time to make sure that I develop both professionally and personally. That was really important to me. So that's how I hope to mitigate the host of [negative] things that people talk about.
Kanika talks about diversity and inclusion in banking:
We've come a long way from where we were 10 years ago, and I hope in 10 years we end up progressing even more. Are we where we should be? No, definitely not, but steps are being taken to make sure we don't go backward or remain stagnant.
I'm hoping as things change and evolve, people's thoughts will also change and evolve. I also think that everything is slowly improving, and we can all do our part to continue to help the industry improve. We can't force anything down anyone's throat and into their heads, so it's really a matter of making sure that we're doing the best that we can, and hopefully, with time, we'll see this industry change for the better.
Kanika on finding her limits:
You know if you're being treated really badly, and you know if you're getting no time for your own mental health, and burnout is caused by culture.
The way I am, I expect a lot from myself, so I tend to put extra pressure on myself, which definitely doesn't help. I'm still a work in progress in that sense. I make sure I'm checking in with myself, and that I’m asking: Where am I right now? How tired am I? How much more do I have to give? And then hopefully being able to vocalize that to my colleagues, or my teams.
From what I've seen, Evercore is really mindful of that. Yes, you work really hard there, because they have a lot of deals coming through, and you obviously want to be staffed on those deals, so you have exposure to clients, but it's a give and take. Banking can be very stressful and you’re working really long hours. But, if you add on to it, you are doubling your suffering and increasing the rate of burnout.
Kanika talks about finding ‘fit’ within Old Ezra’s three finance verticals:
I think people who are willing to work crazy hours initially and are okay with work life balance not being great, are a great fit for banking, and I think that people who tend to be really competitive are also really good for banking, but that being said, I know enough people who are doing IRAM [Investor Relations and Asset Management] and Corp. Fin [Corporate Finance] that are also really driven and committed and competitive, but they just like the work life balance or the nature of the work better in those two verticals.
So I think that honestly, it's more about the hours you're putting in rather than: Are you more driven or competitive? You have to be driven in any vertical that you are in or frankly, you wouldn't recruit for something if you weren't driven in the first place. There is sacrifice and long hours in everything if you want to succeed. I personally saw myself in banking, but there is no one size fits all when it comes to recruiting.
Kanika on her vision for Old Ezra:
The structure Old Ezra provides is extremely helpful, and OE makes sure that you have a technicals book [The Old Ezra guide to banking interviews] and CWG [Core Working Group — 2nd Year mentors] leaders to make sure you have someone to always turn to, and practice with. One of my really good friends is my CWG, and I really relied on my CWG leaders.
You follow the process from the beginning, but there's no guarantee everyone is going to get a job. There is no magic formula that if you do X, Y and Z, you are guaranteed a job. There is a lot of luck that comes into play, and who you get to meet, and who you connect with, and those factors are out of our control. All you can do is your best, and then hope for the best.
Kanika talks about her focus as Vice President of Investment Banking at Old Ezra:
I wanted to place an emphasis on giving more transparency to the international students, because I think they're not given enough of a picture when they come into an MBA program around what recruiting is like for them and how different it is.
That's why I created that vertical for internationals to talk to 2nd year internationals. We tried to create a safe space for 2nd year internationals to be as brutally honest as they could be. When I talk to an international I tell them: It's a lot harder to recruit. Reach out to the internationals, because they've been through it, they can guide you through it, so you don't make the same mistakes, and you can learn from them.
That was my biggest push, and then second, it was making sure that we really continued with mock diversity super days [practice final interviews to prepare diversity candidates] to help diversity candidates who have to be ready for superdays by early November.
Kanika talks about her greatest accomplishment as Old Ezra Vice President of Investment Banking:
It wasn't really my accomplishment, but knowing that I was able to help you all [the Johnson Class of 2022]. You did such a great job placing on Wall Street, despite everything that was happening with COVID. It was incredible to witness. It's more of your class's accomplishment, but being able to help you all in that process, and just be there to see you all succeed is amazing.
We had so many women this year get jobs in banking. I think one more offer this year, so that was great to see. I love to see that number constantly increasing, because three years ago or four years ago, we only had seven women recruiting banking.
Kanika on her favorite moments at Johnson in Old Ezra:
I definitely loved our get togethers on Wednesdays. It was a great way to relax and meet more people. During the first semester, being able to sit in Sage Hall and practice technicals - as sad as that sounds - during breaks between class was also a great bonding experience.
It was fun to drive down to the city together for recruiting. One moment that really stands out to me was, walking from Lazard to another bank, and in a 400 meter stretch I saw three of my classmates, and we all just gave each other a hug and quick pep talk.
Kanika on advice for women in banking and career switchers:
Don’t be scared. It’s not rocket science. It’s just a matter of putting in the work. I made sure I had my priorities straight. For that first semester I didn’t really socialize, because I just wanted to get a job. As a career switcher, you need to put in that extra work, because the chance that you will get grilled harder on technicals is higher. For women in banking: Really make sure you pay attention to the people you’re meeting from each bank, and have that checklist.
Make sure you’re not walking into a bank and being roped in by the name, because that could change your experience. Also be mindful of how many women are around you, how many diversity candidates, how much diversity is there among the males themselves. All things to just keep in mind. Other than that, be yourself!