Natasha Pangarkar 

University of Virginia, Darden School of Business

“Data nerd with a passion for community service. World traveler with a passion for food.”

Hometown: Singapore, Singapore

Fun Fact About Yourself: I once spent the night at Heathrow without realizing the airport was closed.

My flight landed in London at 1 a.m. that day and I walked over to the next terminal for my connecting flight as usual. I was surprised that there was no one at the security checkpoint, but the lights were on and the doors to the terminal were open so I walked through them. The rest of the terminal was completely dark, but I had nowhere else to go, so I waited there for four hours until the activity started up again. I learned later that Heathrow closes for 12 a.m. – 5 a.m. every night and that’s why no one was around.

Undergraduate School and Major:  Williams College, Chemistry and Economics double major

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Booz Allen Hamilton, Senior Management Consultant

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Turning around 15 PowerPoint decks in 3 weeks for Booz Allen’s Multi-Year Planning efforts. I did all of the financial analysis and developed the decks for senior leadership. It was a very tight timeframe for the volume of work, but I’m proud that I was able to produce high-quality deliverables.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Curiosity. Darden has a reputation for being an academically-intensive program and every classmate that I have met so far has shown a deep desire to better understand the world around them in their personal, academic, and professional lives.

What makes the case method so attractive as a means to learn and become a better manager? The case method forces every participant to be really engaged in class discussions. Since cases are based on real-world scenarios, it is easier for us to connect what we learn to the situations that we might face as managers. We have to persuasively communicate our views and reconcile differing arguments to make decisions. Knowing all of us will make decisions with input from colleagues in our post-MBA careers and integrating differing viewpoints makes this an especially valuable skill.

Aside from your classmates and cases, what was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you?  I chose Darden for its excellence in teaching and the interest that professors take in their students. I have always loved school and want to learn everything I can from Darden’s world-class faculty. I had the privilege of attending a Showcase Saturday at Darden before the application season began and was blown away by Professor Loutskina’s passion even when teaching a class of prospective students.

Some of my favorite moments in college were spent getting to know my professors outside of classes. The faculty at Darden has a reputation for being collegial and I am really looking forward to getting to know them over the next two years.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school?  I’m most looking forward to joining Community Consultants of Darden.

I believe all of us have a responsibility to give back to our local communities. When I first moved to DC, I was a volunteer tutor with For Love of Children (FLOC). While I loved tutoring first-grade math, I felt that I could have a greater impact if I used my professional skills to help my community.

I began volunteering with Compass Pro Bono Consulting in 2018. It was my first engagement with a non-profit and I learned a great deal from the experience and my team. I am very excited to use my consulting experience to help non-profit organizations and small businesses in Charlottesville address their key challenges.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? The most challenging question came up during my interview at Fuqua: “What is your biggest regret?” My interviewer didn’t specify whether that related to my academic, professional, or personal life. I hadn’t anticipated that question and I needed to take a moment to reflect and respond.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career?  I had two primary motivations for pursuing an MBA now. The first was a desire to make a transition from working with public sector clients to working with private sector clients. I knew that I loved management consulting, but I wanted to experience the fast-paced, competitive environment that private sector assignments bring.

As someone with a non-business background, I used to joke that the first time I had heard of Porter’s Five Forces was at a firm-sponsored training event. In all seriousness, I felt that I would benefit greatly from learning new techniques and formal frameworks for analyzing and solving business problems.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Columbia, Fuqua, Tepper, and Wharton

How did you determine your fit at various schools?

I prioritized:

1. Teaching style
2. Strength in consulting
3. Class profile

I spoke to students from as many schools as I could. Living in DC made it easy for me to attend MBA fairs and information sessions to really get a sense of the programs and their strengths. I sat in on classes at a few schools to make sure that the teaching style would suit me. I also looked at employment reports to confirm that the companies that I am interested in working for actively recruiting at the schools where I applied.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? I had a serious health scare during my senior year of college. After months of tests, my doctor told me that my symptoms suggested a growth on my pituitary gland. When the MRI of my brain came back clear, I decided that life was too short to be afraid of taking chances.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? In 10 years, my goal is to become a partner at a top management consulting firm and lead a team of consultants, offering innovative solutions to clients. I am fascinated by how companies like Amazon, Uber, and WeWork are leveraging data analytics to disrupt their industries. As a consultant, I want to help my clients become disrupters themselves by integrating data analytics into their strategies.