Parikshit Ambhore

Rice University, Jones Graduate School of Business

“I get things done, look professional doing it and silently judge questionable decisions.”

Hometown: Pune, Maharashtra, India

Fun Fact About Yourself: With a sprained ankle and questionable judgment, I climbed Kalsubai Peak, the highest point in Maharashtra, India. My friends thought I was crazy, and maybe I was! But between hobbling, occasional hopping, and probably looking like a penguin with a twisted ankle, I made it to the summit. Whenever someone says “impossible,” I smile and think of my penguin-style conquest.

Undergraduate School and Major: Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology from DY Patil College of Engineering, Pune University, Pune, India

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Fidelity Information Services, Lead Engineer of Product Development

What has been your favorite part of Houston so far? Why? The food scene is crazy. My friends and I found this random spot in Montrose last month with the best West African food, and now we keep going back. Plus, there’s Italian, Indian – everything! But the people are my favorite part, too. Everyone is from different places, so nobody really cares if you’re still new or don’t know where stuff is. People are really nice here.

The MBA is intense, so I haven’t explored as much as I wanted yet. But when I do have a free afternoon, I’ll walk around with someone and find a cafe. Those random moments are actually the best part. You’re stressed about recruiting, and then you’re sitting in some neighbourhood you didn’t know existed, drinking coffee, and everything is chill.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the one key part of the Rice Jones MBA program that led you to choose this business school, and why was it so important to you? What stood out about Rice was its top-tier finance curriculum and location in Houston, the global energy capital. Being surrounded by major oil and gas companies meant real access to how large-scale financing actually works, not just case studies. I didn’t want to learn financial modeling in isolation. I wanted to understand how finance drives strategy in real companies.

Plus, Rice’s integrated approach makes you work across functions from day one. What surprised me was how much the core team structure mattered. My team pushed back on my assumptions, teaching me something crucial: good financial analysis is useless if you can’t explain it to people who think differently. Many finance professionals get trapped in their own bubble: brilliant but can’t influence decisions because they can’t communicate outside their domain. Rice Business forces you to develop that muscle early – and that’s what got me excited.

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at Rice Jones? I’ve enjoyed being part of the Finance Association and PE/VC Committee. What surprised me most was appreciating the smaller moments, like grabbing coffee after meetings and talking about deals, or getting excited when someone finds an undervalued company.

The Finance Association taught me deal structures and valuation models, but what I’ve really enjoyed is the people. Everyone is genuinely curious, and there’s no pressure to perform. The random conversations about market trends or someone explaining a concept that finally clicks — that’s what sticks with you. I came in thinking it would be about building skills and resume lines, but it’s really about finding your people.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: To me, success is measured by the impact on people’s lives. I worked on a supply chain project in India that tackled food wastage by connecting farmers, retail shop owners, and delivery partners directly. By cutting out the middleman, we created a system that worked for millions of people.

I’ve also taught over 600 students at an NGO for orphan children. Three of them got into engineering schools. Watching them achieve their goals, though their circumstances initially seemed limiting, was a major accomplishment for me. Real success isn’t about what you build. It’s about whether you’ve genuinely moved someone forward in their life.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? My biggest accomplishment as an MBA has been building genuine relationships with people who think completely differently from me. I came in thinking an MBA was about skills and knowledge. What actually changed me was working with batchmates from finance, tech, marketing, and nonprofits. Someone would challenge my idea in a way that made me realize I was missing something, causing friction that forced me to think differently.

These aren’t just networking connections, they’re real friendships. I trust the judgment of my peers because I’ve seen how they approach problems. That’s the real accomplishment: realizing how much I still have to learn and finding people worth learning from.

What has been your best memory as an MBA so far? I have a few good memories, but one that really stands out is when my core team decided to grab lunch together early on. We were all new to each other, so we went to Sixty Vines in Rice Village. Over lunch, we talked about our backgrounds, goals, what brought us here and random things that made us laugh. That lunch was when we truly became a team, rather than just six people assigned to work together. We dropped the formality and started being ourselves.

It sounds simple, but breaking the ice mattered because everything that came after, including the numerous project sessions and the tough conversations about deadlines and responsibilities, felt different. We trusted each other. It’s one of those moments you don’t realize is important until after the fact. But looking back, that’s when the MBA actually began for me.

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