Karan Khurana 

University of California Los Angeles’ Anderson School of Management

“Self-driven individual who thrives in fast-paced environments and loves to enjoy life along with working hard.”

Hometown: Bathinda, Punjab (India)

Fun Fact About Yourself:  One of my hobbies that I recently discovered is writing about my experiences in the form of song or rap lyrics. I’ve written over 20 of them and counting.

Undergraduate School and Major: Panjab University, Chandigarh, India; Major – Chemical Engineering. I’m a first-generation undergraduate in my family, and I’ll make my family members proud by being a first-generation post-graduate.

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: OLA (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) – the biggest ride-sharing platform in India; title: Program Manager

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: One of the parts that I loved about my frequent trips to the local grocery store was the conversations I had with the store owners. I developed a strong relationship with the store owners and they often shared with me the challenges they were facing with the advent of online platforms like Grofers. Curious to understand if other retailers felt the same, I interviewed more retailers. That’s when I saw an opportunity to co-found Koleshop – an on-demand hyperlocal grocery delivery startup and create a positive impact in local store merchants’ lives. My biggest accomplishment was that through Koleshop, I was able to transform hundreds of small businesses by providing them access to technology that helped not only to generate incremental revenue but also to manage inventory efficiently.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why?  Despite coming from such diverse backgrounds, most of my classmates have one thing in common – driving change in one form or the other in their professional or personal lives. For example, one of my classmates holds a patent for his method to assess user personality for technology products. Another classmate of mine worked for years towards bringing a revolution in healthcare through Artificial Intelligence. Even at UCLA Anderson, they are more than willing to take the lead in professional club activities, initiate and organize events, volunteer with their favorite charity, and share feedback to improve the Anderson experience for the incoming classes.

UCLA Anderson is founded on three pillars: Share Success, Think Fearlessly, and Drive Change. Which pillar resonates most with you and why?  Thinking fearlessly resonates the most with me because I’ve continuously followed my passion without the fear of a negative outcome. In 2015, I decided to follow my passion and capitalize on the startup boom in India by joining Oyo Rooms, a small hospitality technology startup. My family and most of my friends were against the decision of leaving a stable job at Reliance Industries, the largest and most profitable Indian conglomerate. However, I decided to take a leap of faith and prove them wrong. In retrospect, the decision turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life – the amount of learning and growth that I had at Oyo Rooms catapulted me towards a successful career in technology. Oyo Rooms went on to become the world’s third-largest online hotel network and I am proud to have been a part of that transformation.

Aside from your classmates, 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?  The key factor that led me to choose the full-time MBA program at UCLA Anderson is the opportunity to immerse myself into technology-specific courses such as Product Management and Global Mobile that are directly aligned with my goal of working in the technology industry. When I read about Professor Terry Kramer, a phenomenal adjunct Professor at Anderson, and watched his videos, I learned about frameworks that helped me look at innovation and trends across the technology industry from a different perspective. Additionally, in my conversations with alumni, I learned how these courses encouraged them to think beyond the balance sheet about the impacts of technology on the environment, economy, and society. This thoughtful culture at Anderson resonated with me and I could picture myself being a part of this community. It is indeed important for me to be able to use technology to create a meaningful impact on people’s lives like I endeavored to do in the start-up I co-founded.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? I’m looking forward to activities enabling cross-cultural collaboration through the International Business Association (IBA). As a recently appointed Director at IBA, I’ve taken responsibilities to organize Alumni Mixers and an International Food Festival within the next two months to introduce my classmates to the diverse culture at Anderson.

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? The most challenging question I was asked was “Tell me about your experience with a poor manager or colleague?” The reason I found it challenging is because one’s initial tendency might be to, directly or indirectly, blame the manager for failure or sub-par results during that experience. However, the real intention behind asking this question is to gauge what you did in that situation to bring about a positive change by providing feedback to the colleague or manager.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career?  Given my experience and nonlinear path in technology startups in India, I’ve mostly learned in the field. Now, I’m preparing myself for a leadership role in the technology industry. I’m particularly interested in Consumer Technology and eCommerce.

There are two reasons why I wanted to pursue an MBA at this point in my career. First, I wanted to structure my approach to solving business challenges through formal education and learn about the product journey from inception to growth. Now that I have a strong foundation of business through substantial work experience, I can apply the frameworks that I learn during my MBA retroactively to my past experiences and look at them from a new lens. Second, I wanted to learn from the diverse perspectives of my peers and gain an understanding of products and technology in the global context.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Since I was very clear about my goal of working in a technology company, I only applied to programs that had strong ties to the technology industry via a deeply entrenched alumni network and frequent programming in the form of events by technology leaders. Hence, along with UCLA Anderson, I also applied to the full-time MBA programs at USC Marshall, CMU Tepper, and DUKE Fuqua.

How did you determine your fit at various schools? I evaluated business schools based on my own personalized ratings on the following factors, which were of prime importance to me. This approach might be different for every individual, but these specific parameters helped me find the best fit.

1. The school’s focus on technology:During my research, I looked for professors in this space and their interests and focus areas through school websites. I also reached out to current students interested in product related roles in the technology industry and asked about their most valuable courses, resources, and favorite professors. Comparing this, I broadly shortlisted schools aligned with my career goals.
2. Financial aid:Given that I wanted to support myself financially during my MBA, I shortlisted schools, which offered financial aid to students from my background. Based on school-wise historical data from articles and MBA forums and considering my profile including my GMAT score, I marked the probability of me receiving financial aid from a school as High, Medium or Low.
3. Access to companies I wanted to work for:The target companies for me are Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Uber. Before applying, I used LinkedIn search to reach out to current students and recent alums working in these companies to understand their hiring process. I also looked at the employment reports published on the school’s website to get data on the number of people hired at these companies.
4. People and culture:Being a people person, I really wanted to be at a place without cut-throat competition. I was looking for a culture that was inclusive and supportive. I only learned about this after hearing personal stories from students at each school.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? One of the core values instilled by my father to my brother and me at a very early age was of Seva (the Sanskrit term for selfless service). Not only is it a core tenet of my religion, but also a tradition that runs through generations in my family. However, we had to focus on one activity and work in service of that mission.

My earliest memories of contributions that shaped who I am were at the age of 13, when I volunteered at the Gurudwara (Sikh temple) offering Seva to all that visited. That was a defining moment and the beginning of over a decade-long involvement in organizations of interest –while at university and during my professional career. I have served in leadership positions during my undergraduate studies and led over 100 volunteers at multiple community service clubs for the past six years to drive significant social impact in India.

Where do you see yourself in ten years? Combining the learnings at Anderson with practical exposure at a technology company post-MBA, I believe I would be fully equipped to become a technology leader in 10 years. I see myself leading a business unit managing a portfolio of consumer products at a large or mid-sized technology company.