June 26, 2025
It was September 2021. I was closing out week 8 of a 12-week stint in Boston Consulting Group (BCG) private equity ring-fence. I’d just wrapped a long stretch in San Francisco. At the time it just felt busy but normal, still in my first year at the firm, but this was close to the peak of the busiest year in the history of Private Equity.
More capital raised. More deals closed. More diligence than ever before.
I had made enough Marimekko charts to last a lifetime.
I was the TAM guy. Market sizing. Deck polishing. Deep in the model framework. Deeper in the spreadsheet. Fit well with my FP&A skillset and I wasn’t ready for GLG calls yet.
It wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes. But in that moment, the beautiful excel model I was staring at looked perfect.
It was Wednesday night, in my room on the 32nd floor of the St. Regis San Francisco, staring at the TAM model I had put together over the past week, one that I had been furiously working on late last night on my college buddies couch in SF, trying to get early numbers before the readout on Tuesday.
Except now it didn’t matter. It will never be used again because the Sponsor decided to pull out of the process.
The Mega Fund Due Diligence case just went “pencils down” after a 6 day sprint (in part because of things we found), and I was already staffed on a new DD starting Monday.
All I wanted was a couch, Netflix, and silence until the race begins again on Monday. Back to Dallas for the weekend and then back to SF.
Then my phone rang. It was a member of the BCG recruiting team.
“Can you fly back early tomorrow? We have high-priority candidate from UNC. Triple crossed, Bain and McKinsey are after him as well.”
Cue the sigh. Cue the flight change.
The Dinner
So there I was, back in Dallas, sitting at dinner with my wife Lindsey (a newly minted Project Leader), a new associate, a senior partner and his wife, and a young guy named Sanjeev Musuvathy . I didn’t know him. I didn’t know what to expect. But the guest list alone told me one thing: this guy was a big deal.
I remember thinking back to when I was 20. I wasn’t weighing offers from MBB. I was just trying to hold on at a random state school. Trying to convince people I belonged.
I wondered:
Will this kid be down to earth, or inflated with the self-importance that often comes with triple offers and a résumé that makes people stare?
Turns out, he was the former. Completely.
Sanjeev was humble, curious, and happy to be there. Not the performative, eager-to-please kind of happy. Just a grounded, thoughtful energy — with insightful questions for the senior partner and a willingness to listen. He’d done his research. He cared. And he made a lasting impression.
The senior partner, naturally, worked his consultative magic — telling stories that were as much recruiting pitch as they were advice. Sanjeev played right into it — not to impress, but to engage. He asked great questions, referenced the partner’s thought pieces, and genuinely seemed interested in his work.
By the end of the night, the senior partner whispers to me:
“If we lose this guy, it won’t be for lack of trying”
Then I Forgot About Him.
Time passed. I left BCG in 2022, before Sanjeev even started. And like most things in the fast-moving world of consulting, our dinner faded into memory.
Until a few months ago.
I was scrolling LinkedIn and saw a post about MBB recruiting. Familiar face. Sharp content.
Wait… Is that Sanjeev?
I kept scrolling. A few more posts confirmed it. It was him. But now he was gone from BCG.
Oh no, I thought. Did I mess this up? Did we bring him in only to see him leave?
So I sent him a message: “Good to see you again — let’s reconnect.”
What I Found Out
Sanjeev didn’t leave BCG because he was disappointed or underwhelmed.
He left because he got pulled into something bigger — the Schwarzman Scholarship, sponsored by the founder of Blackstone to bridge China and the world. He’s heading to Beijing soon to join a global cohort of leaders and scholars.
Oh, and in his free time? He’s helping undergrads, MBAs, and experienced candidates break into firms like BCG by coaching on Leland . Casual.
And that’s when it hit me.
What impressed me the most wasn’t what he had done. It was how it had unfolded.
This wasn’t someone collecting logos with a 10-year master plan.
This was someone who was simply walking forward, open to opportunity, grounded in humility, and willing to work/build as he went
People Like Sanjeev Don’t Succeed Because They’re Perfect.
They succeed because they show up. Because they get through things. Because they keep walking, even when the path isn’t clear.
And sometimes — especially when it isn’t.
Q&A With Sanjeev
1. What’s a moment along your path where things almost fell apart — and how did you get through it?
I’ve absolutely failed many times in my journey.
One of the most seminal failures was in high school speech and debate.
I was a hotshot freshman that thought I could repeat my success sophomore year without working for it. No surprise in retrospect, I missed the state tournament. I was shocked, but internalized the lesson that nothing can be taken for granted.
Over the next few years, I pushed myself, and as a senior, I placed 3rd in the U.S. in policy debate, which remains my proudest accomplishment because it was Oklahoma’s highest finish since the Civil Rights Act was passed.
In college, I had my most public failure: Lux Libertas Ventures. I had spent a full year trying to build UNC’s 1st student-run VC fund.
We got media coverage in the U.S. and Canada, made my lofty vision public…and I couldn’t raise the $1M we needed to be financially viable. We closed the fund down, and I felt dejected. My plan to transform UNC entrepreneurship had failed. I had failed.
In the years afterwards, the members of my team ended up trailblazing for UNC in the startup space, from being UNC’s 1st Partner at Dorm Room Fund to early employees at Sequoia-backed startups.
My experience in VC taught me that it’s often not about the specific outcome you achieve, but the communities you build. That’s what I’m trying to create with my vision to transform consulting recruiting.
It didn’t start this way. I actually rejoined Leland because I was case coaching a friend preparing for BCG, and I just saw myself beaming in the Zoom.
What started as a small decision turned into a massive vision, as 100+ candidates reached out to share their stories from countries like South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, etc.
Now, I want to find out where the rabbit hole goes. How do we level the playing field to enable anyone, from any background, to enter a field that changed my life?
I can’t promise I won’t fail. But I can promise I will work my hardest to help my community achieve their goals.
2. Your journey looks “up and to the right” from the outside. What’s something people don’t see?
It’s easy to see company names, accolades, etc. and think someone’s happy. I can honestly say that until I did a lot of the value clarification work I’ve done in the last year, I never had a real sense of what made me happy.
Growing up, I knew what excited me: solving tough problems, building things, and chasing massive dreams to ‘change the world.’
I was never good at balance though.
How could I be? Imagine being a college student having the chance to build a retail crypto trading product in Nigeria, or support the design of a GTM strategy for an EMR platform in Ethiopia. These are products that could materially change others’ lives.
Balance is important though. I’m grateful that my friends and family serve as incredible guardrails, but I know I have much room to grow here.
Naval Raikant, the legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has this interesting quote: ‘Imagine how effective you would be if you weren’t anxious all the time.’
I often speak publicly about this, but I’ve been seeing a counselor for the last 3 years, and it has done wonders for my ability to live life the way I desire. Mental health is truly an investment in yourself.
Gen Z men are particularly at risk for mental health crises – if you ever need someone to talk to, please don’t hesitate to message me.
3. What’s one belief or mindset that helped you move through uncertainty?
Trust the process. It’s a saying I took from the Philadelphia 76ers during their rebuild that I’ve had as my mantra since I was 15.
I’m a massive NBA fan (and I actually met Joel Embiid at the San Francisco St. Regis Alex mentioned earlier!). My fun fact is I entered the 2022 NBA Draft as a joke.
I don’t know if there’s a ‘trick’ to handling uncertainty. In general, your tolerance for uncertainty is much higher than you think. Don’t run away from those uncomfortable feelings, run towards them.
I don’t know if I’m always moving in the right direction, but I make the best decision I can with the information at hand, and course correct from there.
I was actually quite uncertain about my plan post-BCG. Adult life isn’t like college. There isn’t a natural next step that you have to do. No one is making you register for classes, telling you that the ACT matters, etc.
Want an MBA? Go for it! Don’t want one? No problem!
Leaving your first adult job feels like a major life event in the moment. What made it even harder was many questioning why I’d choose to leave a role I was doing well in, that paid this high, and provided such strong growth opportunities to chase a pipe dream.
My pipe dream? How can we build businesses in emerging markets to solve youth unemployment?
To be honest, I sometimes still question my decisions. How could I turn down making that kind of money? But, I think back to the people I’ve befriended, from Syrian refugees to Egyptian students, and I remember why I chose to chase this mission.
4. What advice would you give to someone who’s unsure of their next step?
I love Sahil Bloom’s four types of luck:
- Blind luck
- Luck from motion (hustle)
- Luck from awareness (relationships)
- Luck from uniqueness (expertise)
I’m fond of creating luck from motion and awareness – that’s how most of my opportunities have come to me.
Hustle hard, meet inspiring people, and the right opportunities will come.
It’s easier said than done, of course, and this is a form of compound interest where work will pay dividends in the future. You own your own destiny. Chase it.
Final Thought
In 2021, I was just trying to survive another deal sprint. I didn’t know that dinner would matter.
In 2025, I was just scrolling LinkedIn. I didn’t know that message would reconnect us.
But that’s the thing about life — it’s rarely the big planned moments that shape you. It’s the small ones. A dinner. A post. A flight you didn’t want to take.
If there’s a takeaway from Sanjeev’s story, it’s this:
Show up. Stay curious. Lead with humility. And trust that the dots connect — just not always on your timeline.
That’s how you build a career. That’s how you build a life.
Thanks for the reminder, Sanjeev. I’ll be cheering you on — and I know I’m not the only one.
So, what’s your next step? Are you building a perfect plan or are you building a life?
- If you’re a high-achiever looking to define your career path with purpose, what is one step you can take this week to move toward that goal?
- If you’re a student unsure of where to go next, what is one conversation you can have to gain clarity?
- If you’re feeling stuck, what is one thing you can do to trust the process?
Ultimately, your journey is your own. You own your story. Go build it.