- 01Consistently hit targets
- 02Comfortable with clients and pressure
- 03No path into the analytical work she wanted
- 04A finance move looked closed to a non-finance CV
Line 03 is why Manjula Ganig left a job that was working — and why almost everyone told her not to.
Manjula was good at sales. That is the part that makes the rest of the story unusual.
She hit her targets. She was comfortable with clients, with pressure, with the ordinary knockbacks of the job. By any external measure it was working, and that is exactly why leaving it was hard to explain — to interviewers, to family, and at times to herself.
What she wanted was different work: analysis rather than persuasion, a role where being right mattered more than being convincing. Finance was the obvious target and the obviously closed door — she had no finance background, and a non-finance CV is the kind recruiters filter out before a human reads it.
Almost everyone told me not to do it. Leaving something stable to start over, with no finance degree — it sounded reckless when I said it out loud. I did it anyway.Manjula Ganig · [draft for approval]
The assumption — hers included, at first — was that years in sales counted for nothing in finance. That turned out to be half right.
The technical half was real and had to be built from zero: financial statements, modelling, valuation, the analytical toolkit an employer expects on day one. But the other half transferred immediately, and it is the half a finance syllabus never teaches. Communicating a finding to someone who did not build the model. Holding a position under pressure when a senior person pushes back. Reading what a client actually wants. Recovering from a no and going again. Analysts need all of that, and most arrive without it.
So the work was not to replace her background. It was to add the technical layer that turned a capable communicator into a credible analyst.
Nine months, starting from zero
The and the programme began that day — the Investment Banking PG Program, Batch 7, over nine months: financial systems, Excel and advanced Excel, valuation techniques, financial markets, corporate transactions, startup ecosystem and funding, due diligence and risk mitigation, compliance and regulatory framework.
She came in without a commerce background, which is the case a structured programme has to earn. The first weeks were the hardest — financial statements assuming a vocabulary she was still building, Excel doing things she had not known it did. What carried her through, she has said, was not willpower but structure: the next class already on the calendar, the next assignment already due, a mentor in Anupam Dixit who could say which roles took people with her profile and how to approach them.
The nine months in between
Most of what happened over those months does not make a dramatic story. She attended classes, submitted assignments, got some back marked up, and did them again. That is what a career change actually is — the unremarkable act of turning up to the ninth session in a row after the novelty has worn off.
She finished with in the seventies and low eighties — good, not flawless, and honest about where she was still developing.
The 70% on one track is worth leaving in rather than hiding. It is what a real record looks like for someone learning a technical field from scratch while the material got harder — and it makes the scores that came later mean something.
The case study went well past a single valuation. It carried a discounted cash flow model with a full WACC build-up, and then two things Reshu's did not:
an LBO with bear, base and bull entry cases — and a complete M&A merger model computing pro-forma EPS accretion and dilution on a $1.5bn-acquires-$400m deal.
Alongside them: working capital, a Black-Scholes option valuation, and three bond-pricing models — annual, semi-annual and amortizing.
A template will carry you through one valuation. Building an LBO with three scenarios, and a merger model that resolves to whether the deal adds or dilutes earnings per share, is a different order of work — and it is the sort of thing an interviewer asks a candidate to walk through line by line. It sits in a workbook built by someone who, nine months earlier, was in sales.
Before the interview that mattered
She sat a , assessed across ten parameters. It came back 7.5 out of 10 — recommended for the interview process — with the honest bits left in.
| Evaluation parameter | Score | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| Communication skills | 7/10 | Communicates ideas reasonably well; responses can be more concise and structured |
| Confidence & presence | 7/10 | Adequate confidence and professional presence; can be more assertive |
| Problem-solving approach | 8/10 | Logical approach; breaks problems into manageable steps |
| Analytical thinking | 7/10 | Good analytical ability; deeper reasoning can be developed further |
| Business acumen | 7/10 | Understands basic business context; should strengthen business-oriented thinking |
| Teamwork & collaboration | 8/10 | Positive and cooperative approach to teamwork |
| Adaptability | 8/10 | Willingness to learn and adapt to new situations |
| Professionalism | 8/10 | Professional attitude and appropriate workplace behavior |
| Ownership & accountability | 7/10 | Takes responsibility; can show more proactive ownership |
| Interview etiquette | 8/10 | Professional interview etiquette; responds appropriately |
| Overall performance | 7.5/10 | Good — recommended for further interview process |
Five of the ten rows sit at 7, each with a specific "can develop further" note. That is the sheet doing its job. A scorecard of straight nines is a formality; one that names exactly where a career changer still had ground to cover is an assessment — and it is why the recommendation at the bottom carries weight.
Where she is
The offer came on 13 September 2026 — about a year on from the admission letter, counting the nine-month programme and the months of searching that followed. Manjula Ganig is a Financial Analyst at StartupLanes, the analytical work she left sales for, reached not by luck but by closing a technical gap she was told would take too long to close.
Her days use the foundation she built and the commercial instinct she already had. The expertise compounds now — this year's modelling makes next year's harder work possible — and the quarter no longer resets to zero.
Her was issued on 6 August 2026. The details are below if you want to check.
The records show someone who left a career that was working, learned a technical field from zero in nine months, scored honestly along the way — including a 70 on one track — and built a valuation, an LBO and a merger model good enough to defend in an interview.
She supplied the nerve to leave and the persistence to keep going. The programme gave that persistence a structure to push against, a mentor who knew the market, and the technical layer sales never taught her. Both were needed. Neither would have worked alone.
People kept saying my sales experience wouldn't count. It counted for a lot — but only after I could actually build a model and talk through it. The technical part was what I was missing. Not the confidence.Manjula Ganig · Financial Analyst at StartupLanes · [draft for approval]
The record
Manjula Ganig reviewed this page before publication and approved every detail. Checked against Meritshot's records by the Meritshot placement team.
| Item | Source | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Admission letter | Signed, Founder & CEO | 25 Sep 2025 |
| Registration | Tax invoice 2932 | 25 Sep 2025 |
| Batch | Meritshot LMS | Batch 7 |
| Mentor | Meritshot | Anupam Dixit |
| Module scores | Meritshot LMS | 83.33 · 70 · 80 |
| Mock interview | Assessed, ten parameters | 7.5 / 10 |
| Capstone | Valuation case study | 14 worksheets |
| Certificate | Meritshot, verifiable by ID | Issued 6 Aug 2026 |
| Offer letter | StartupLanes · Financial Analyst | 13 Sep 2026 |