MBA alumna Divya’s career triple jump: following her passion

In 2023, Divya Dewan, just a year into her dream job, received the ‘Reach High Award’ for Innovation from her employers LHH, part of the Adecco Group. In November 2023 she was also named LinkedIn’s ‘Top Voice in Career Development’. Recognition of, not only her achievement, but her determination to get there. 

“I got my hustle from the women in our family. They taught me that if you see a little crack of an opening, you must do something with it.”  

Divya had already built a career in sales to become Head of Sales and Communications for Veris, a global workplace solutions company in Gurgaon, India. But she was determined to move from her sales role to pursue a career in human resources strategy and saw an MBA as the best route to make the leap.  

Divya is keen to stress that it has not been easy. “It can be hard to be what you cannot see and as an Asian woman of colour there are not so many role models. One of the reasons I chose to do my MBA in Cambridge was that before applying I found lots of stories online about people who I could relate to. And I loved the message ‘Come as you are’. It was so liberating.”

A Forté Fellowship Scholar, Divya was also the recipient of a Cambridge Judge Business School Bursary Award. “I was very fortunate that with 65% of my fees sponsored, I was able to come to Cambridge debt-free.” 

Preparing for the job market

Keen to prepare herself both for her MBA and the job market beyond, Divya studied for her International Coach Federation Licence, taking the final exam in the middle of her time in Cambridge. 

“I knew the Cambridge brand would open doors. But I wanted to do my bit as well, to make sure that I was well qualified to move to the human resources sector.” 

During the MBA, the Management Praxis and Organisational Behaviour courses reassured Divya that she had chosen the right sector to pivot to. “Those were the classes that really got my eyes sparkling. Thomas Roulet is a brilliant Professor, and I found his classes very engaging.” 

But meanwhile Divya received a dispiriting response from the first recruiters she contacted for a post in human resources. “I arrived in Cambridge with rose-tinted glasses, I thought it would be easy from there on. Yet here I was, a former Head of Sales, aged 28, being told to apply for trainee jobs with a massive pay cut. I didn’t want to start from scratch.” 

Self-doubt began to creep in. “Women tend to set their standards of perfection high; they want to be 100% on a job profile before they even apply. And comparison is a killer. I felt insecure when I looked at how well everyone else on the programme seemed to be doing. And I was still adjusting to England, where the culture is more restrained than in my hometown of Delhi.” 

What turned it around for Divya was entrepreneurship. “I used to meet up with a classmate, Shubham Agarwal, who had run a wellness start-up in India. We decided to set up a platform that would help MBA students achieve the career pivot so many of us were looking for, by matching with former MBAs who had already made the jump.” 

Divya became Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Judge and a part of the Accelerate Cambridge programme, run by The Entrepreneurship Centre, part of the Business School. She continued to look for a post in human resources, with little success, while also pursuing other career options. 

Achieving the career triple pivot: switching country, function and industry

Then she noticed that LHH, a talent solutions company which is part of the Adecco Group, were on the Global Consulting Project (GCP) list offered to MBAs. She immediately applied for the practical project as a first preference. 

“Unfortunately, there were not enough applicants, so the project was cancelled. But I saw that one of the Senior Vice President at LHH, Izabella Khazagerova, had also taken her MBA in Cambridge in 2010. I reached out to her and eventually she agreed to a chat. We ideated around the careers space and there was such energy and passion that I felt a clear synergy.” 

But Divya heard nothing back from LHH for months. “I checked in with them every fortnight and as a safety net I lined up 2 job offers, in sales and marketing and consulting, even though my heart wasn’t in it.” 

Just as Divya was about to despair of achieving her dream career pivot, Izabella invited her to lunch in London. “It was serendipity. My entrepreneurial effort exactly chimed in with the platform LLH was planning to set up to encourage retention and engagement amongst their own employees. And my coaching licence was a further bonus.”  

Within a week, Divya had her job offer in human resources for a role that both she and her boss now feel could have been specially created for her. A year into post and leading a team of 4, Divya is Practice Leader, Career Development and Mobility for LHH UK and Ireland.  

“I have achieved the triple pivot: I had only ever worked in India before and now I am based in London. I have moved sector from office automation to people strategy. Rather than sales, I am now a subject expert in careers, working as an in-house consultant. My job title is above that I held in India and my offer was amongst some of the highest pay grades of my cohort.” 

Divya’s role as a Cambridge Women in Business mentor

Divya is a mentor for Cambridge Women in Business and likes to tell the story of how, when she was offered a job by a leading consulting company, she was told ‘your energy is an issue, you need to tone it down’. 

Unwilling to drop her drive, Divya turned the job down instead. She felt vindicated when the CEO of her dream company told her, “We loved your energy throughout the process. We could really use your dynamism, Divya. Welcome to the team!” 

As she puts it “The lesson? Never, ever change your true nature to fit a job. Instead, find a job that fits your true nature, just as you are.”