In Network: Chandra Nath, MBA ’07

When and how did you meet?
“David was a managing director when I joined Merrill Lynch as a summer intern. I worked with him for almost eight years, and he was probably the sharpest M&A banker to train under. Everyone was—and I say this lovingly—terrified of his intellect. He was just so good, and probably one of the best mentors I could ever have had, because in preparation for talking to him, I wanted to make sure I had everything just right.”

What’s the value of your bond?
“I was working directly with him, preparing for a board meeting with a company. It was my first one, and he had confidence I could get there. But I just didn’t get it done. He realized we weren’t going to be ready, took over, and postponed the meeting. Then came the dreaded moment when he called me into his office. But he said, ‘Don’t worry. Think about what went well and what didn’t.’ He was essentially saying, ‘You did this for the first time. It was hard and high stakes, and it’s OK that you failed.’”

When and how did you meet?
“I met Dan in 2009 when I was a bit more seasoned of a banker at Merrill, and we sold Foundry Networks, the company where he was CFO, to Brocade in a transaction valued at north of $3 billion. Dan was a great mentor to me throughout the deal. He has since served on the boards of a number of tech companies, most recently AI market leader Supermicro.”

What’s the value of your bond?
“His financial models were the benchmark of what good looked like for me. I saved those redacted templates, and I said to myself, ‘If you run a company someday, this is how you should pull the data and schedules out and present them to bankers.’ It’s been foundational to how I operate at DevRev.”

When and how did you meet?
“Aparna and I met at the start of business school when our entire class went to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for the Leadership Orientation Retreat. Our class spent three days getting to know each other, and there were a lot of great events.”

What’s the value of your bond?
“We’re both in the Bay Area, and we hike regularly with other Booth grads. Out on the trails along the Pacific, we have very real conversations—about kids, family, career successes, failures, dreams, and evolving priorities. We’re in different industries, and she opens my eyes to what’s happening in health-tech innovation.”

When and how did you meet?
“Saurabh and I both went to the Indian Institute of Technology, but on different campuses, and then started our careers together at Capital One. When he enrolled at the University of Chicago, he told me about it and said it was ranked really well. I hadn’t even thought about it as a business school.”

What’s the value of your bond?
“He bought a condo, and then I bought one in the same complex. I moved to the Bay Area; he did too. We had kids around the same time. We’ve vacationed together. We’ve been leading these kind of parallel lives. Both of our daughters recently started at UChicago. After the holidays, I bumped into his wife at the airport as we dropped them off. Professionally, I’ve learned from his measurable, scientific approach to marketing.”