I'm Saksham - VP of Global Markets at FinIQ, an IIM Ahmedabad MBA (Class of '26), and before any of that, an engineer running retail operations for Indian Oil. I mentor working professionals through the same GMAT-to-MBA decisions I had to make myself, without quitting a job to do it.
I studied mechanical engineering, not business. My first real job was with Indian Oil Corporation, and over seven and a half years there I went from an operations officer to an assistant manager running a portfolio of $150M+ across 45+ fuel stations along two major national highways - new site approvals, dealer relationships, CRM strategy, automation projects, the full weight of a large, physical, deadline-driven business.
Somewhere in the middle of that, I decided I wanted an MBA - and specifically, I wanted it without stepping away from the job. That meant GMAT prep didn't get dedicated hours; it got whatever was left after a full operational day. Early mornings, odd evenings, weekends that weren't really weekends. What made the difference wasn't more time - it was a plan built for the time I actually had, and being disciplined about sticking to it.
That plan got me a 725 - the highest in my eventual IIM Ahmedabad cohort - along with admits from IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, and IIM Calcutta. I chose IIM Ahmedabad, and spent a year there rebuilding, from the ground up, how I thought about strategy, markets, and my own next move.
That next move turned out to be a full pivot - from oil & gas operations into fintech, as VP of the Global Markets Platform at FinIQ Consulting. It's not a small jump on paper, energy to fintech, and figuring out how to carry seven years of operational experience into a completely different industry taught me almost as much as the MBA itself did.
Mentoring grew directly out of that. I'm not coaching from theory - I've built a GMAT plan around a demanding full-time job, converted a genuinely tough MBA admissions cycle, and made an industry switch that required repositioning everything I'd done before. I now use that exact experience - the score, the process, and the pivot - to guide working professionals through the same decisions, which is how I've ended up working with 50+ of them so far on GMAT prep, profile building, and MBA and career calls.
I didn't prep for the GMAT as a full-time student. The plans I build fit around a real job and a real calendar - because that's what mine looked like too.
Converting IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta means I've actually sat through the interviews and the decision of which offer to take - not just researched it.
Moving from Indian Oil into fintech at FinIQ gives me a current, practical view of how to position a non-traditional profile - during admissions, and after.
Every plan I build starts with where you actually are, not a template. I've lived the constraint of prepping for the GMAT with no spare hours, weighed real MBA offers against each other, and rebuilt a career from scratch in a new industry - so a session with me tends to be less motivational talk, and more an honest, specific plan for your exact situation.