Anica Nangia set out for her MBA with the mission to build community, something she longed for amid the work-from-home fallout of Covid. She found this community at the Haas School of Business–as well as in the diverse city of Berkeley itself. The strategies and insights she gained during her MBA also contributed to the foundation for her success at Google. Read on for more about her story in this Real Humans: Alumni.
Anica Nangia, Berkeley Haas MBA ’24, Product Manager at Google
Age: 28
Hometown: Los Altos, CA
Undergraduate Institution and Major: Duke University, Biomedical Engineering; minor in Mathematics
Pre-MBA Work Experience: Product Manager, Global Logistics Manager at Medable, two years, health tech (digital clinical trials); Global Operations Leadership Development (GOLD) Program Associate at Catalent Pharma Solutions, two years, pharmaceutical manufacturing
Post-MBA Work Experience: Product Manager, Google, eight months, AI for business intelligence
Why did you choose to attend business school?
I made the pivot from operations to product management one year before attending business school. Learning how to be a good product manager in a work-from-home environment at a rapidly growing startup during a global pandemic was challenging, but exciting. I decided to attend business school to gain the skills and tools to be a more confident and more effective business leader and product manager. I was also burnt out from the isolating work-from-home environment and was excited by the idea of being surrounded by a passionate group of like-minded people.
Why Haas? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to attend?
I chose to attend Haas because I wanted to build a career in tech and because it was important to me to go to business school near a city I would want to live and build a community in. Haas is unlike other business schools in many ways—the community is incredibly down to earth, it’s located in Berkeley, one of the most diverse cities in California, and the opportunities for learning and community engagement are unparalleled.
What about your MBA experience prepared you for your current career?
During my first year, I focused on core business classes and healthcare electives, many of which were highly informative, such as one where we heard VC pitches from various healthcare startups at various stages and critiqued their presentations and business strategies. After my internship, I realized I should double down on building my technology and artificial intelligence knowledge. I took courses in the School of Information on natural language processing and various MBA courses at Haas about product management, tech in urban life and designing tech for “good.” These classes helped me learn strategies relevant for my current role at Google and helped me fall in love with tech as an industry. I was also the vice president of the Haas Healthcare Club, where I led the annual Haas Healthcare Conference. This was an incredibly rewarding experience and prepared me for public speaking and event planning work in my current career.
What was your internship during business school? How did that inform your post-MBA career choice?
My MBA internship was at Google as a product manager. During my first year at Haas, I always thought I would continue to work in the intersection of healthcare and technology. I submitted my application for Big Tech on a whim, and upon getting the interview for Google and Amazon, I realized a stint in Big Tech could really help me build a foundation in tech and gain confidence in my product management capabilities.
Why did you choose your current company? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to work?
After interning at Google, I was given a full-time offer, which I accepted. The role at Google presented me with a lot of opportunities to learn and grow. In contrast with my pre-MBA role as a PM at a startup, Google is one of the largest companies in the world. I wanted to apply some of the frameworks and strategies learned in my MBA to a large company like Google to round out my career experience. Another reason I accepted the position was the flexibility that exists within Google to do projects with different teams and move between product areas. I thought Google would be a good place to gain work experience as a PM for a range of product types from data infrastructure products to consumer products like Google Maps and YouTube. My role also has a focus on AI, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to immerse myself in this hot new industry trend.
Advice to current MBA students:
—One thing you would absolutely do again as part of the job search?
Practice casing with my fellow business school peers!
—One thing you would change or do differently as part of the job search?
I would leverage the second-year peer advisors more. I actually worked as a peer advisor in my second year and greatly enjoyed sharing my experience getting the internship at Google and giving career and interview advice to my fellow Haasies. As a first-year, however, I didn’t leverage this program very much and wish I had.
—Were there any surprises regarding your current employer’s recruiting process?
Most Big Tech recruiting relies solely on product case interviews, so you get little to no opportunity to talk about your career experiences or answer personal questions.
—What piece of advice do you wish you had been given during your MBA?
Don’t be intimidated by your amazing classmates because they have such impressive backgrounds and work experiences. Instead, take full advantage of the opportunity to learn from each other and build lasting relationships.
