While we cannot debate the significance of employees and customers on shareholder value, capital investment has a direct impact on how effectively businesses can respond to market needs !

Shanmukham Kumarappan, our next pathbreaker, Analyst with Spark’s investment banking practice, studies and understands businesses – both quantitative and qualitative aspects – with the end objective being to effectively highlight its attractiveness to investors / buyers.

Shanmukham talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about choosing an unconventional career in valuation after doing his Chartered Accountancy which was vastly different from audit.

For students, follow a path that you are naturally interested in, because work can be very demanding, and you’d want that mental fuel to keep going.

Shanmukham, can you tell us about your early life?

I grew up in Madurai – this is a city in south Tamil Nadu. My father comes from a family of business-men / entrepreneurs and hence I was naturally interested in business. My mother’s parents were both academics – but I unfortunately did not share their passion for the sciences or teaching.

In terms of what I did outside of school, it was primarily only chess and reading. I used to read a lot of non-fiction as a child before slowly moving to books on management & business people. I also love history – so I consumed a lot of that – documentaries and books.

What did you do for graduation/post graduation?

I picked commerce for my 11th & 12th grades, and moved to Bangalore to pursue an undergraduate commerce course at Christ University. This course was designed to enable students to pursue CA simultaneously – and I did that, doing my articleship at PwC. 

What were some of the key influences that led you to a career in IB/Finance

The idea was planted in my head by my father – who said a B.Com is relatively light, and that CA will only take an additional year while significantly adding to my credentials. 

I only knew that there were not too many CAs and that the cumulative pass % was small. I took it up as a challenge, taking comfort in the fact that I’d still earn my B.Com degree even if CA didn’t work out. At that moment, I did not think at all about future career prospects.

How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career? Tell us about your career path

You’re required to work for 3 years under a qualified, practicing Chartered Accountant after you complete your CA Intermediate exams – this is called articleship. Right now, this period has been reduced to 2 years – it was 3 back in 2019. I did my articleship at PwC.

This was relatively straight-forward since PwC came to Christ to hire people. So did KPMG, and a few other large Bangalore based firms. I really wanted the stamp of a large brand, and I realized I didn’t want to run my own CA practice. I didn’t analyze too much – but this turned out to be the right step.

I completed CA in July 2022, and my articleship ended in October of that year. PwC let us interview internally across businesses, if we didn’t want to continue in audit. I knew by then that I was very interested in finance, rather than in accounting or taxation. PwC’s corporate valuation practice was hiring, and I fortunately interviewed and quickly got selected. All this was within a month of me clearing my exams – so I didn’t have to bother with interviewing at other places.

Valuation was very new to me, and demanded skill sets vastly different from those required in audit. For the first 12-18 months I was very absorbed in my role, and only after that did I begin to start thinking about what next. Investment banking was always seen as glamorous, and I thought from valuation it was a natural next step. So I started interviewing, and landed at Spark.

But in the process, I also realized that every career path has some features in the long run – both positives and pitfalls. It pays to be cognizant of these things because a) demands placed on you differ at different levels, and you need to assess a career path not just on your role today, but what you’ll be expected to do in 5-10 years – you do not want to stagnate at middle management, and b) in this era of super specialization, when you keep switching across business lines, you risk not having the depth that is required for a person of your cadre.

How did you get your first break?

My first break was getting into PwC for my articleship. Fortunately it happened via my college.

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

Challenges I would say were navigating steep learning curves, & managing my time effectively amidst very tight schedules.

Where do you work now? What problems do you solve?

I am an Analyst with Spark’s investment banking practice. My group focuses on manufacturing companies. The business involves raising money for companies that need investment to fund growth,  helping entrepreneurs sell part or whole of their businesses, and helping companies acquire other companies.

In most professional services – be it valuation, or IB – your firm is lending the specific competence of its employees to a client that does not house that competence within itself. I like to think of our value add this way – while entrepreneurs take care of the assets of the business, we solve for the liabilities side of their Balance Sheet.

A lot of my work revolves around studying and understanding businesses – both quantitative and qualitative aspects – with the end objective being to effectively highlight its attractiveness to investors / buyers. I work a lot on MS Excel and Powerpoint – making financial models and company decks.

 How does your work benefit society?

Many professional services firms are viewed as not contributing to the real economy, and hence are not seen to add direct value to society.

I’d say though that helping capital / money move to where it is needed / utilized most productively has a direct impact on employees, vendors, customers, and shareholders. Example – a badly run plant, when sold to a good operator, improves the lives of countless people.

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

Every project / engagement I have been part of has taught me something, and a handful of them significantly added to me professionally. But I cannot recall anything in particular that is personally close to me.

Your advice to students based on your experience?

Follow a path that you are naturally interested in, because work can be very demanding, and you’d want that mental fuel to keep going. And as a corollary to that, speak to many people, read a lot so you are exposed to many professions.

Try to put yourself in the company of people both incrementally and significantly ahead of you – you actively learn from exposure. Some seniors will be extremely good guides, because they’ve been where you are, and have seen several people on the same path – do take their advice.

Future Plans?

I’ve been in my current role for less than a year – so I’ll be focusing on deepening my learning here, for the foreseeable future.