Current Position and Field

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Q: Can you describe your current position and what field you work in?

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A: Yeah. So I am a financial consultant, specifically around project finance in the renewable energy sector. My primary role is, as a consultant, you have multiple clients. I would say my biggest one right now is with a startup in the solar residential space.

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And what they're looking to do is, if you're familiar with companies like Sunrun and Sunnova that put solar panels on rooftops, they're trying to do the same thing. But Sunrun and Sonova operate in marketplaces that have government support. So there's something called the SREC markets, where, as you generate power, you receive some level of compensation from the government, and it's usually large companies who want to offset their scope to emissions.

And so what the startup wants to do is bring that to rural areas and grids that actually need renewable energy. So, target areas are like Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia—very dirty grids, like coal-heavy grids. My job specifically is around the financial modeling that goes into it. Unlike traditional modeling, where you just get comfortable with industry assumptions, project finance is different because it requires a bit of everything: engineering understanding to make realistic assumptions, a lot of tax strategy, tax accounting interpretations of the tax code specifically around section 45 (the investment tax credit), and the IRA bill.

 

It allows companies to transfer 30% or more of the cost to investors. The IRA made this easier, so the barriers to entry are lower. But to properly model that, you have to understand it, so there’s a lot of tax policy and legal interpretation involved. Then there's accounting because, at the end of the day, you're trying to optimize, manipulating the numbers so that your partner who gets the tax benefits takes all the losses in the first half or a certain period. Then it transitions to the corporate, or startup, to take the cash flow benefits. My job is modeling all of that, providing strategies to optimize, and ultimately meeting sustainability and financial goals.

 

Daily Responsibilities and Work Environment in Project Finance

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Q: What is your actual, like, typical day at work like? What do you do?

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A: Yeah, so my largest client is the one I've mentioned mostly with the project finance stuff. They are a startup and a smaller team, still a ton of work, so you wear a lot of hats doing it. My typical day-to-day—oh, the other aspect is we're fully remote and a global team. So, my typical day is I have a set of tasks usually planned out for the month, and so I kind of work my way around these tasks. Typically, most of it’s around modeling right now. Some of it’s industry analysis, legal opinions, and trying to read what the IRS is ruling on.

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I would say most of my day is spent in an Excel sheet, optimizing it, playing around with it, doing sensitivity analysis, and then creating another model to generate multiple scenarios. The problem with Excel is, if you put everything in one workbook, it gets very slow, very quickly. After 3 or 4 iterations, it’ll slow down. Typical project finance modelers will have solid workhorse computers, but your decision-makers will try to pull it up on their iPad, and that’s not going to work. So, you have to create it in a way that your boss can review it. A lot of my work is around creating actionable insights with the data I use and see.

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Navy Background

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Q: Can you talk a little bit about your previous role in the Navy?

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A: I was a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. My background before consulting is that after I graduated from the Naval Academy, I went to submarines, did a full deployment in the Western Pacific. All submarine officers are trained nuclear officers, which gave me a technical background. I’ve always had a passion for finance; in high school and college, I studied economics and did a thesis on cyber attacks and market reactions. But you have to put that on hold for service time, which was in the submarine community. That experience built the technical acumen needed for my current job.

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Applying Naval Leadership and Risk Management Strategies to Finance

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Q: How has your Navy experience influenced your career now, especially in financial risk management?

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A: Yeah, so naval officers, in general, one of our largest jobs is operational risk management. At the end of the day, when we give orders, those are sailors’ and marines’ lives on the line. When you're asking someone to go into harm's way, you have to have done some background research into what you're asking them to do, what risks will be presented, and, ultimately, what can be done to mitigate those risks.

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While implementing residential solar has no combat aspects to it, you may deal with combative stakeholders—people who do not want to adopt clean energy, may not agree with climate change, etc. At no point is anyone’s life on the line, right? But the same strategy you would use to understand the situation, gain full situational awareness, establish some level of tactical control, and anticipate and mitigate issues ahead of time still applies.

That kind of methodology and thinking ultimately drives success in the finance industry, and it's not something that sticks just to project finance. I think it applies to anything where you're in a managerial, strategic, or analytical role. Being able to anticipate risks and mitigate them is a huge concept. In the military—especially for military officers or senior enlisted members—you receive extensive training on how to do that quickly and effectively.

 

The Evolution of Financial Risk Management in a Technology-Driven Era

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Q: In your financial risk management job, what do you think has changed since you started? Or, what changes do you see coming, especially with technology?

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A: Yeah, so that's a good question. And, as you're quite familiar, and have probably flipped through the news about the outcome of the Presidential election, there is a regulatory risk around the Inflation Reduction Act. What that would potentially look like with a full Republican House and a Republican President—could that be repealed? I, personally, don't think that will happen. I think everybody's district benefited from the Act’s provisions, and that tends to make it more difficult to repeal something once it brings prosperity to a district.

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Regulatory risk is a big aspect, and figuring out how to mitigate and deal with it is a significant part of the work. Another key point is that solar panels used to be extremely expensive from a production standpoint. Government regulation, by design, is supposed to help industry absorb some of the initial research and development costs, and proper policy reduces the overall cost to manufacture.

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What we've seen throughout the industry is that the cost per watt for solar panels has come down substantially, making solar more accessible to more members of society. I continue to see that as a viable trend, though I do think there is some lower bound to how low the prices can go.

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I think the next area of innovation is around batteries and battery pricing. Once innovation on reducing the cost of solar panels maxes out, I think it’ll shift toward driving down battery costs and improving efficiency. It will then be about optimizing solar panels to get more output from them. And yeah, I think those are kind of like the top three key points on this topic.

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Advice for Pursuing Military or Financial Careers

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Q: Do you have advice for someone interested in either military service or financial risk management?

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A: Yeah, so those are two very, very, very different things, right? And what I would tell people is, joining the service is one of the best things I have ever done and will probably ever do. It’s one of the things I hold very dear to me. Some of the best friends I’ve ever had are from the service, and some of the experiences that have really propelled me in a corporate career and helped me find success have come from my military training.

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My advice to anyone who wants to join the military is to make sure you join for the right reasons—whatever those may be. The military brings people from all walks of life together. There are plenty of people who join because it helps them get out of a really terrible situation. There are plenty who do it for the love of the country, and others who join just for a paycheck, bonuses, etc. Whatever your reason, make sure you have a plan for it. It’s not an easy job, and there are going to be rough times where you’ll need to fall back on that reason to get you through.

With respect to finance, my biggest advice is this: this community tends to make things sound more complex than they actually are. I think understanding and seeking mentors early to identify what "right" looks like is crucial. For example, we’ll say something like, "Oh, I’ll create a model," but what does that actually mean? If you try to Google “financial model,” there are like 10,000 different things that pop up. Depending on the industry or subsect of finance you’re in, that model could look entirely different.

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So my advice is, if you’re interested in finance, identify what area of finance you want to work in and find mentors in that space to help guide you. They can push you toward the right resources so you’re not inundating yourself or wasting time on the wrong things.​

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Career Reflections

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Q: Is there anything you would have done differently in your career journey so far?

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A: It's a good question. I think I personally would have sought out mentorship even earlier. I think when I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do in the finance space—for a long time, I thought I was going to be around investment banking. I've done stints in private equity, venture capital, and so on.

 

Because I didn’t know what I wanted, I was very hesitant to gain a mentor. What I would have done differently is identify mentors in different verticals of the space and just ask questions to build a breadth of knowledge. As you gain seniority inside finance, you’re going to have to absorb some of those other aspects of responsibility. Being able to understand, at sort of the deck plate level, what’s going on is very important for making excellent managerial decisions.

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Leveraging AI in Finance: Integration and Challenges

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Q: Can you talk about how you use AI in your work and any challenges in applying it to finance?

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A: So specifically when we talk, when I personally refer to artificial intelligence, I think there are two major suites. Right? You have your large language models like ChatGPT, as you probably know, and then the other one is around machine learning and advanced statistical analyses. In finance, there's a ton of forecasting you’ll do and trying to make the most accurate prediction based on the limited data sets you have to help de-risk the decisions you're about to make.

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And so I've used different variations of machine learning and advanced statistical modeling to help in that forecasting aspect. I think part of that journey, because I am not a computer scientist by any means, is that I’ve taught myself how to do some basic level of Python. This is where I kind of use the large language model side of it. So like both Copilot and ChatGPT, depending on the confidentiality of the data I'm using, to help me work my way through code, especially to build these Python algorithms to help me go through this data and create real-time aspects.

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From a financial modeling standpoint, our classic tool is Excel. You can get some pretty complex functionality pretty fast in Excel, and you can use Copilot or ChatGPT to take your initial formula. When you're dealing with project finance, if you do not have the most efficient formula, because you're dealing with thousands and thousands of rows, you will super-max out your computer's resources. ChatGPT can help you identify a more efficient way to do this.

For example, there's a functionality called OFFSET. This is like an older type of functionality inside Excel. It's a very common thing to use for scenario setups. That is also a very slow, memory-intensive aspect. So like the old way of doing it is like, “Okay, I know all these different functionalities in Excel,” and I’ll build a piece of code or a formula based on all these older functionalities. ChatGPT helps me find a more efficient way to do that. As a result, I've learned that process. Then, the next iteration of doing it, I'm not typing OFFSET. I'm using INDEX MATCH, for example. This is a very basic example of it, but that’s kind of the idea of how you optimize your resources to be able to deliver a better product.

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How Past Experience in Real Estate and Venture Capital Shapes Current Role

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Q: Can you share more about your past work in real estate and venture capital and how it shapes your current role?

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A: Yeah, so real estate. So I work specifically in commercial real estate due diligence, both on hotel projects and a large retail acquisition. Specifically, like the buildings, but then also having to underwrite the retail side of the business to make sure it could support paying the lease of the commercial real estate.

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I think some of the work is very similar, like the due diligence aspect of finance. When people talk due diligence, depending on what subset of finance you're in, all that means is you're really just verifying if what people say is true. So, if this retailer is telling me, "Oh, I like that rent you're charging me. I could pay that 10 times over," then, when I look at their financial data, can I reconstruct and get to this 10x number or not? Right?

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With commercial real estate underwriting, people give you the data; that data is already there. In project finance modeling, you have to create that data, and you're making it from a whole slew of assumptions. In commercial real estate, the numbers are right in front of you. Like, this retailer has had sales for the past 10 years. I can see their track record, I can see what's happened in the past 10 years, and use that to understand, "Okay, this is how it was in a down cycle, this is how it was in an up cycle, and this is how interest rates affect it, etc."

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In project finance, especially rooftop solar, that lifespan is so much shorter in terms of how much back data you can look at, and what the true effects of interest rates are, etc. And what are my ways of mitigating that?

So that’s a big example. The other aspect is when you're in commercial real estate versus residential real estate or residential leasing and solar, the consumer protection laws are very different. Understanding what you can and cannot do when you're trying to generate revenue, legally, is key. Consumers have a lot more protections than businesses. So, all the checks and balances that need to be put in place—do you capture all of that in your sales process and your sales cycle, and can you model that effectively?

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And so those are pretty big. In venture capital, I worked in pre-revenue and pre-seed VCs. So, you validate the market size, which is more of an art than anything else. If it’s tech, some sort of hard tech, you validate the patent—have they done all the legal aspects around it?

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The final part of VC at that stage is you're not investing in the business idea; you're investing in the team. So, there's a lot more time spent on who’s the CEO, who are the founders, what experience do they bring to the table? If they don’t have that experience, is this something that my team can put someone in place to help them with? Do they need a board? All these governance-type aspects of finance.

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VC is all about this "what if" scenario, and you're taking a much bigger risk with venture capital. I think probably the hardest part in venture capital is the fact that this is your company, your baby, and I’m trying to take a piece of it and tell you what to do in exchange for money. Ideally, when I tell you what to do, it comes from a place of expertise and knowledge. You would think that by taking my advice, it creates this mutually collaborative experience, but that’s not always the case. So, you end up dealing with a human chess game over business decisions.

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Military Experience and Its Role in Entering Venture Capital

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Q: Is it common for people with military experience to go into venture capital?

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A: No, actually, quite frankly, I would say VC is super hard to break into straight out of college. Typically, they recruit right out of the investment banks after one or two years at one of the big ones. The veteran community is massive and does have its feet in all these different spots, but I wouldn't say that it's a common path to end up in finance as a veteran. I would say, from the officer standpoint, we tend to end up in more managerial positions. So, there are financial decisions that are part of our day-to-day, but VC is a very niche area to end up in.

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Key Differences Between Startups and Commercial Environments

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Q: What are some key differences between working with startups versus commercial environments?

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A: Yeah. So with startups, you're very resource-limited. You'll have all these good ideas you want to pursue, but at the end of the day, you have to operationalize one and perfect it. You keep driving it forward until it fails or until you see no viable way forward. You keep going until you have an MVP (minimum viable product or service), and you keep going through this iterative process. That can get very tenuous very fast because sometimes, people don't know — you don't know what you don't know.

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So the general advice is: get something out there, get that feedback, get that discovery, and solve a problem. If you want to be successful, you have to identify a problem and solve it.

The thing with startups is that you're resource-limited, so only one problem, or maybe two problems, can be tackled at a time. Only one or two MVPs can be developed until you choose one to bring into fruition. In contrast, in the commercial environment, you have a lot more resources available from an agility standpoint. Though startups can turn on a dime — they have like an internal handbrake, and they can just drift around — turning a large corporation is a much slower process. There's a lot of bureaucracy, so it's a very slow-turning ship. They don't remain as agile, and they tend to stick to their processes, even if they're not ideal, because that's the way they've always done it. It takes such a long time to implement change.

 

So, I would say those are the top two big areas where things differ.

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Short-Term and Long-Term Career Plans and Aspirations

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Q: What do you see as your short-term and long-term plans for yourself? I know that you are still young in your career, but if you were to look towards the future.

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A: Yeah, I think. And so I, myself, kind of struggle with that answer. Right now, I see two very distinct paths. One is a pathway to become a fund manager, and I can already do all the modeling. I do a lot of the strategic aspects of it. Really, the only thing I need to add on top of all of this is going on an investor roadshow and raising capital.

The other option is that I have a lot of experience with strategic decision-making. Again, I understand the financial modeling aspects and a lot about macroeconomic environments. So, there is a path to becoming a CFO as well. Right? Like, I could see myself being in one of two spots.

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They're two very different jobs, but I think I keep moving back and forth in terms of skill development between the two, with what I'm doing. Probably in the next 10 to 15 years, I'll make a decision about which pathway I'll enter. But until then, I'm keeping myself dynamic and building both skills up.

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Decision-Making Process for Choosing Between Managerial Roles

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Q: How are you deciding between these two managerial roles?

 

A: They're both managerial. I think it's like with the industries you kind of end up in. So, like when you're a fund manager, you're sort of like... your product keeps changing, right? Like whatever your investment is, you'll pick an investment niche. But then, like, what you're investing in, you find a project, do its diligence, invest in it, and move on.

Whereas, in a traditional CFO role, you build a company. You keep iterating on that process, you optimize that process, and you become very capital-efficient. Then, once you have this product go from a hyper-growth stage to a cash cow phase, you start moving capital into the next space and keep funneling that. Your ability to identify hurdle rates and stuff becomes key.

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So, your job as a CFO is to ensure you're being an efficient steward of capital, whereas your job as a fund manager is to identify amazing opportunities, diligence them, invest in them, and then most importantly, exit them so you can provide your investors with a return on investment.​ 

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Exploring What Drives Passion in Adarsh's Work

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Q: What is your favorite part about your work?

 

A: I think the fact that I'm always learning. So, one of the things I left the submarine force with is this idea that you get beaten into you — the idea of always pursuing a higher level of knowledge, and sort of that thirst to always read more and stay up to date with the industry. That comes naturally. And so, I really enjoy the fact that I am learning something new every day while I'm working on stuff. I get to stay on top of emerging trends in technology, emerging trends in finance, emerging trends in strategy.

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And it's really never a boring day. Right? Like, especially with what's going on yesterday and today, it doesn't mean renewable energy is no longer going to exist. Right? It is a huge part of it. Whether or not the U.S. puts as much money into it versus the rest of the world is up for debate, but all this could potentially mean more private sector involvement, creating a new catalyst for the industry. So, change is not always a bad thing. Right? It just turns the industry into a more efficient piece.