From MIT to Harvard to McKinsey, Carolyne Njeri Gathinji Credits Her Success to God and to Going after her Goals with Undivided Attention
“God’s fingerprints are evident in the people He put on my path” says Carolyne Njeri Gathinji. Carolyne is an MIT and Harvard graduate who currently works at McKinsey & Company. Njeri has excelled through life, whether it was at the Alliance High School in Kenya, a prestigious all-women boarding school, or at UBS after MIT. She is a consultant who loves traveling the world. Her best self-care tips? Same as Kerry Washington’s: getting her nails did. No wonder she is such a gladiator! Who is Carolyne Njeri Gathinji and what gets you out of bed every day? Give us a brief tour of your life. She is a simple, light hearted lady who is living a life she had never envisioned for herself. An optimist with a disproportionate share of joy, seeking positivity and positive energy. She is an extroverted introvert who enjoys bringing people together and forging connections. She is a Kenyan (from Nakuru) living in Boston and working as a management consultant. Many people have been part of my journey. I could not get to where I am by walking alone. I am motivated by their belief in my strengths, their support along the way and the ability to inspire others. Secondly, my job gives me the opportunity to work with brilliant, ambitious and interesting people to solve clients’ problems. Getting to the solution becomes fun when surrounded by great teammates and clients. I spend most of my time in Boston with one or two trips to Kenya every year to visit my family. I love traveling so I’ve also established a tradition for a week-long summer vacation trip. During the rest of the year when I am at work, Monday – Thursday are spent at the client site, working with them to solve the problem. Given most of my clients are not in Boston, I find myself away from home most of the week. I get back to Boston most weekends and spend the weekend relaxing and catching up with friends. I am also currently helping a local Boston business think about its growth strategy. You are incredibly achieved – Alliance, MIT, UBS, Harvard, McKinsey- what’s your secret? Is there really a secret? If someone has discovered one please share… As I said earlier, it really has taken a village! I wish I could say all this was part of a master plan that I worked on, crossing one thing off the list after another. The only one of these institutions I really thought of for years was probably Alliance. I had that dream growing up, probably from the age of seven; given the caliber of strong women I knew who had attended the school. MIT only became an option in 12th grade when my physics teacher prompted me to apply to American colleges, and about a year later, I was packing my bags and leaving my family at 18 and taking my first flight of the country to Cambridge. Having said that, when I decided to go for any of the opportunities, I worked with undivided attention on the goals I had set and tried to leave no stone unturned. In the moment, it was a lot of hard work and a matter of sacrifice, but if your eyes are on the prize, you barely feel it. In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho talks about the fact that when you want something so bad, the universe conspires to make it happen. I believe this, but for me, it misses one crucial piece – the work you and the universe have to put in. What I have found is that if you decide you will pursue something and put in the work, and make sure the relevant people in the universe are aware, they will work with you to make it come true. Of course, this presupposes that these relevant people are bought into your success and want to be helpful. Although, I didn’t have the master plan, I believe someone did, and if I reflect on my entire journey, God’s fingerprints are evident in the people he put on my path, the strength and resources He provided and the favor upon my life. Steve Jobs said you can only connect the dots looking backwards, and even in my short life so far, I have had to trust that the dots will connect in the future and given my all to what is happening in the moment. You travel a lot. What’s the best place you’ve ever visited? Each place is different and I find that there are always unique experiences to enjoy and cultures to learn from. If forced to pick, I would say Thailand is at the top, because of the breadth of experiences it offers. You studied Mathematics and Management Science in undergrad, do you apply what you learned in Math in consulting? Any advice for younger women looking to study in the field? Even though I do not use most of the complex Math that I learned, logical and critical thinking skills gained are very applicable in consulting. Inherently, we are solving a client’s problem, which is what a Math major does daily. You need to break the problem into structured bit-sized pieces that lead to the final answer. You need to apply certain known theorems and assumptions along the way. That is what consulting is about. Additionally, we do a lot of quantitative analyses for which a love for manipulation of numbers fits well. Advice: First, let no one tell you that you cannot pursue or do math…refer them to Hidden Figures! Secondly, think of how you want to use your Math degree. There are many ways you could directly use it; as a professor, statistician, actuary etc. However, there are many other professions that would value a math degree and you have to figure out if you need to pair the degree with another to pursue a career in that field. I combined my Math degree with