While in her final year at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school, Anjali Sud applied to dozens of jobs in investment banking. However, she didn’t get any.
“I got rejected from every single big investment bank,”
Sud, now the CEO of Vimeo.
She recalled an incident when she was told by her interviewers that she doesn’t have the personality of a banker. She was upset and started doubting her capabilities.
But Sud had faced challenges before. As a young teen in Flint, Michigan, she applied on a whim to a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts. She was accepted and left home at the age of 14. At first, Sud had a difficult time in the academically rigorous environment.
She worked really hard to prove her mettle.
Without losing hope, Sud finally landed in a job as the first analyst for a small firm, Sagent Advisors.
At Sagent, Sud learned the skills that would help her succeed later on. Sud hired and trained new analysts, helped the fledgling company expand internationally and worked on partnerships. She realised that the non-traditional path can be the best one, she said.
After spending a few years at Sagent, Sud started exploring other options. She earned a degree from Harvard Business School and held a few positions at Amazon.
Sud was often advised by people to not shift jobs and roles so fast. But Sud ignored that advice.
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From Amazon, Sud went on to Vimeo, where she started out as a leader in the global marketing department.
During her time there, she made the case that the business should focus its attention on content creators.
That was an area no one was really focused on, Sud pointed out. Vimeo accepted her offer and allowed her to run the company. She credits her speedy rise to that ability to carve out her own path.
Looking back, Sud wishes she had worried less about having a linear career path. She advises the young and aspiring entrepreneurs to not worry so much. She believed in making decisions based on your strengths and not on fears. That doesn’t mean avoiding failure.
“Failure is essential to success,”
Sud said.
Anjali Sud is a living example of a person who believed in herself and did not let people’s criticism to bog her down.
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