From Myanmar To McKinsey Via London Business School: A Doctor’s Journey

In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prarthana Venkatesh stepped into the wards of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London — and straight into a storm. The newly trained doctor had not yet begun her career when Covid-19 overwhelmed the UK’s healthcare system, leaving exhausted senior physicians and untested juniors to confront a crisis without precedent.

It was medicine at its rawest — and for Venkatesh, it exposed not just the fragility of healthcare systems, but a deeper need to understand and improve them.

“There were maybe two wards in the whole hospital that weren’t full of Covid patients,” she remembers. “You’d walk in and everyone’s oxygen levels were dropping. We were expected to handle acutely unwell patients, relay tragic news to relatives over distressing phone calls, and perform life-saving procedures as patients abruptly fell into cardiac/respiratory arrests. The senior doctors who might usually offer guidance were already overwhelmed, rushing from one emergency to the next.”

Working in frontline medicine developed Venkatesh’s ability to work in high-risk environments of extreme stress, make decisions of great magnitude under critical time constraints, and manage an overwhelming number of patients and colleagues.

It was also a moment of clarity.

“I knew I wanted to make a bigger impact than just treating one patient at a time.”

A CHILDHOOD IN MYANMAR, A LIFELONG MISSION

Long before she was performing surgeries in London, Venkatesh had seen the cracks in global health firsthand. Raised in Myanmar — a nation with one of the lowest-ranked healthcare systems in the world — she grew up with a profound understanding of what happens when healthcare systems fail.

Her parents, both doctors, had relocated to Myanmar to bring affordable and accessible pharmaceuticals to underserved communities. “Growing up, the underfunding, the shortage of medication, and the exodus of healthcare professionals were impossible to ignore,” she says.

This early exposure to healthcare disparities would later fuel her determination to work at the intersection of medicine and business. By age 18, Venkatesh had already led Myanmar’s largest student community service organization, worked with the Myanmar Red Cross and National Health Network, and helped organize rural healthcare camps that collectively served over 2,000 patients annually in rural areas.

These experiences instilled a passion for medicine — and a determination to create lasting impact. Years later, as she rose through a prestigious UK surgical training program performing appendectomies and hernia repairs under renowned surgeons, she began to feel the limits of a purely clinical career.

“I wanted to work at the intersection of medicine and business,” she says. “But when you’re doing 12-hour shifts and night rotations, there’s no space for anything else.”

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL: A NEW LENS

Venkatesh enrolled at London Business School to gain that broader lens. She arrived knowing little about the business world beyond her family’s business in pharmaceutical manufacturing — “I didn’t know what PE and VC even stood for,” she says with a laugh — but quickly immersed herself in strategy, finance, and entrepreneurship.

Her medical expertise proved invaluable in this new environment. She co-founded a medical device startup targeting wrist fracture treatment, winning £3,000 after pitching to a panel of venture capital judges. Driven by a passion for longevity medicine, she has established herself as a sought-after speaker and longevity specialist, delivering keynote addresses at institutions such as INSEAD and publishing medical research.

Venkatesh later interned at McKinsey & Company, where she received a full-time offer.

“McKinsey attracts some of the sharpest and most driven people I’ve met,” she says. “It is an ideal training ground for learning how the world’s biggest businesses tackle strategic challenges.”

Her second year at London Business School marked a unique integration of surgical practice and business. Demonstrating her capacity for multitasking, she returned to surgical training at the respected Cardiac Surgery unit in St. Thomas’ Hospital, simultaneously pursuing entrepreneurial ventures and completing her MBA.

MYANMAR, MEDICINE & WHAT COMES NEXT

Even as her career expands globally, Venkatesh hasn’t lost sight of home. Her family’s pharmaceutical company, based in Chennai, India, continues to manufacture and supply essential medications to more than 40 countries. In recent years, even while balancing the demands of medicine and MBA studies, she has worked tirelessly to contribute to the company’s strategy and business expansion, driving growth across international pharmaceutical markets.

In the past few years, Myanmar, already notorious for having one of the world’s worst healthcare systems, has been devastated by the combined effects of Covid-19 and a violent military coup. Amid political unrest and economic collapse, many multinational companies have pulled out.

Yet despite this, “we remained committed to maintaining a stable business presence and supporting our local teams, operating across 21 divisions in the country we called home,” Venkatesh says. “Through leading pro-bono healthcare camps, coordinating large-scale medication donations, and spearheading medical education efforts, I’ve helped shape our work in Myanmar, learning how businesses can have a meaningful role in driving social impact even in the most challenging environments.”

Now just weeks from graduating, she sees her time at LBS not as a detour from medicine, but an expansion of it. She recently launched Longevita, a health and wellness start-up with a strong nonprofit mission, pledging a percentage of proceeds to cancer care, a cause close to her heart.

“Being a doctor is core to my identity and purpose — I will always practice medicine in some capacity,” she says.

For Venkatesh, the stethoscope and the startup are not in conflict — they’re two sides of the same mission to heal and transform lives.

“My career in medicine now informs every product I build — rooted in evidence, focused on clinical outcomes, and designed to move both people and systems toward better health.”

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