Sandeep Aneja, founder and managing director of Kaizen Private Equity, India’s first education-focused equity fund, says that living and working abroad puts students in a better position to give back to society.

Aneja talked with Heidi DeMarco in Delhi about his personal experience studying in California and how his MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business helped him launch his career in venture capitalism.

What made you choose to do your MBA from Stanford University?

I was living in the U.S. and I wanted to do an MBA because I wanted to explore business opportunities. I didn’t want to end up as an engineer.  And I realized I was good in certain areas and Stanford was one of the better options I looked at.  When it came along, there was no single doubt in my mind that I had to go there. Look at the beautiful climate of California, and also the education system was much more holistic, the opportunities were diverse—you can be an entrepreneur, you could be an investor, you could be working in consulting or banking, which were two opportunities not available to me prior to the MBA.

How did attending Stanford University help you launch your career in venture capitalism?

“There is an experience you gain from living and working abroad that changes your perspective…It opens up new opportunities for you. And when you come back [to India], I think you are in a better position to give back to society.”

It helped me very much. My first break in the venture capitalist business came in the summer of 1999 when I did my management consulting stint. I came out of it realizing I would never go back to consulting because it was too much travel. I went to the career-counseling department and said, ‘I want to be in investing, get me a part-time job for my second year.’  So they put me in touch with a lot of venture capitalists in the area, who were within walking distance from the university campus and I got one of the jobs working pretty much full-time while going to school. I really liked it. So, while that was good fun, after graduation I joined one of the companies and ever since then I’ve been in investing. That was my break. Clearly, the counseling office helped a lot.

The education systems in India and the U.S. are structured very differently. In your experience, what can South Asian students gain from studying abroad?

“Value that you deliver in the U.S. is not just to the U.S., actually, it’s a very global job no matter what you do.”

There is an experience you gain from living and working abroad that changes your perspective.  Here, the experience in India, often times is about the next job.  It’s about overcoming the income hurdles. In the U.S. those hurdles of life are not there.  You experience a lot more, a different perspective and you think differently. It opens up new opportunities for you. And when you come back [to India], I think you are in a better position to give back to society.

See, I think the education system where it is in the U.S. today is clearly a higher education and miles ahead of where we are today.

Do you think it is a disadvantage when students decide to stay and work abroadas opposed to returning to work in their respective countries?

"I think the education system where it is in the United States today is clearly a higher education and miles ahead of where we are today."

I don’t think so. I think it’s good that some stay back because you have to be able to deliver value somewhere. Value that you deliver in the U.S. is not just to the U.S., actually, it’s a very global job no matter what you do.  The ones who stay back are possibly doing very well at what they do.  And those who choose to come back, choose to come back, hopefully with a mission and purpose and use whatever they’ve learned to deliver that here…and that is very important.

What has been the enduring value of your Stanford University MBA?

First of all, it’s the brand name and secondly,the network. Thirdly, the confidence it gives you to say that you have the ability…that you are lucky to be in the top one percent of something in the world. Not just by grade, that doesn’t matter at the end of the day.  What matters is that you were lucky enough to have the opportunity.  You are in the position to change some things faster than others would be because you can pull in resources faster—that’s the proven ability that it gives you.  That confidence is what you get when you say, “What can I do next with it?”  That, I think, is very enduring.