Turning curiosity into career opportunities
Insights from Vivek Venkatraghvan
Vivek Venkatraghvan graduated from Christ University, Bangalore with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Investment. He spent four years as a Mergers and Acquisitions Consultant at KPMG, a global professional services firm, where he worked on M&A deals across various sectors. While his work focused on e-commerce, IT, manufacturing, and entertainment sectors, Vivek’s curiosity and passion for alternative proteins brewed in the background. He decided to pursue an MBA at Duke University to learn how he might translate his business acumen toward a career in the future of food.
When asked what experiences stood out to him during his MBA program, Vivek reflected on the time he worked with Orbillion Bio, a cultivated meat company focused on scaling premium Wagyu beef, as part of a unique elective course at Duke. Through the Fuqua Client Consulting Program, MBA students can work as consultants for mentor companies. Upon learning that a cultivated meat company was listed as a mentor in the program, Vivek did not hesitate to express his interest.
“When I saw [the project with Orbillion], I was like, ‘Yep, this is the one I want to do.’ And I highlighted that interest to Duke very clearly. Most people at Duke also knew about my interest in alternative proteins already because I talked about it a lot.”
While this established program teed up an ideal set of circumstances for Vivek, his proactive self-advocacy allowed him to capitalize on this opportunity to further his career goals. Vivek learned that sharing his interests and passions with his network, whether that be a supportive faculty advisor or fellow classmates, can unlock new opportunities down the line.
Vivek’s project focused on surveying a large number of consumers to gather insights that would inform the company’s go-to-market strategy.
“We asked them questions like how much they’d be willing to pay for cultivated meat, how they would perceive this, what factors they consider when making these purchases, things like that. We also did a couple of more quantitative analyses around potential price points they [Orbillion] could charge.”
This experience allowed Vivek to gain hands-on experience in the industry and deepen his understanding of the types of problems and questions companies are trying to solve. Vivek noted the relevance of this project to the work he is doing today as a Consultant at Bain & Company, where he is often running consumer surveys. Vivek remains passionate about having a future career in alternative proteins. In the meantime, Vivek is always on the lookout for ways to stay involved, such as serving as a panel moderator for the Nucleate Cultivate hackathon and keeping up with the latest developments at conferences like The Future of Protein Production.
Even though Vivek did not need to do any cold outreach to secure the project with Orbillion Bio, he definitely did his fair share to build an alternative protein network and identify the next step in his career path.
One of the ways Vivek built his network and created a new avenue for other students to start building their network in the space was by establishing the Duke Alt Protein Project. As a co-founder of the first alternative protein-focused organization at Duke, Vivek was laser-focused on driving impact in a way that would last beyond his time at the university. In his second year at Duke, Vivek and his team took on a massive endeavor: host the first-ever, alternative protein conference led and designed 100% by students in Durham, North Carolina.
“That was definitely the most rewarding and the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. It was very challenging because that was literally the first year of our existence, and we were still trying to get our legs on the ground. But in addition to that, we also wanted to make sure we did something big that would have an impact.”
Vivek and his team crafted a stellar lineup of industry professionals, including Ethan Brown of Beyond Meat and T.K. Pillan of Veggie Grill, to join their event and discuss what needs to happen over the next decade to make alternative proteins mainstream. Another panel focused on how the public and private sectors can collaborate to make alternative proteins more accessible. To top it all off, Vivek and his team organized a pitch competition in which students pitched business ideas to a judging panel of venture capitalists.
“It was a really special experience because it brought so many great speakers and minds together in Durham, which is a relatively small town. It has a strong food tech community, but it’s definitely not like SF or New York when it comes to food…[the event] helped a lot of people who weren’t aware of alt protein to learn more about it. This conference really helped to open their eyes to the industry.”
While the impetus for the event was to create something that the entire Research Triangle Area community could benefit from, Vivek also walked away with a deep sense of accomplishment, countless new connections, and invaluable industry and academia insights that he can take into the rest of his career.
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Author Heather Deal
