Academic prowess in particular areas of study often guide people in their career pursuits, but excelling in non-academic skills, like communication and collaboration, self-management and personal qualities, and problem solving and critical thinking can lead people to unanticipated professions outside that academic focus.
That was Anita Kishore’s realization, as she traversed through college and entered the professional world.
“Some people said I headed in a very different direction, but I think the amazing thing about a degree in science, or STEM, is that it gives you a lot of options. People know that you’re not afraid of getting a little technical, or analytical or maybe opening up a spreadsheet. You develop a certain way of thinking,” she said.
After graduating from PHS in 1995 top of her class, Kishore went to college in New Haven, Connecticut, to attend Yale University, where she majored in chemistry. She was not premed and didn’t know what her plans were for the future.
“I liked the science and I liked the people who were majoring in the science, who were graduate students in the sciences. I thought they were smart, and kind, and interesting people,” Kishore said.
She completed her bachelor’s degree and received a Rotary Scholarship from District 6110 (including Southeast Kansas) to go study at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
“I was very grateful for that. It covered my tuition and my expenses for one year living in Melbourne, Australia,” she said. “I was looking at tensile properties of spider silk - what makes it so strong, what makes it so resilient - as a way to potentially use spider silk for commercial or industrial purposes.
“I was able to get a masters degree as well as travel. I gave a lot of speeches, because that was part of the Rotary requirements. You have to give speeches no only in your host country (which is Australia) about cultural differences, cultural exchange, work that you were doing, research that you were doing. Then, I also gave speeches when I came back to the 4-states area.”
After earning her master’s through University of Melbourne, her master’s thesis advisor invited her to stay on and keep studying, but being 10,000 miles away from home, family and friends is difficult. She wanted to come back home to the U.S.
“So I came back to the U.S. I was still enjoying doing research and working with other scientists, so I decided to get my Ph.D.,” she said. “I attended the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia. I was studying the fundamental technology of MRI’s… Specifically, I was developing new methods to study difficult to study systems, technically called membrane associated proteins, or carbohydrate binding proteins, which are important in determining blood type, and predicting how the body may respond to different drugs,” she said.
Her research paved the way to develop new kinds of drugs and new techniques of eventually delivering drugs. She spent a lot of time while working on her graduate degree wondering what she was going to do with her Ph.D in science. She looked at those filling the roles in academia and the competition.
“Many people believe if you get a Ph.D. you’re automatically going to become a professor. What’s wild is, in my field, it used to be 80% of people getting a Ph.D would leave academia. Only 20% would stay. That number is now 94%, so only 6% of people who get a Ph.D. stay in academia,” she said.
“I kind of looked around and said, ‘You know there are some really smart people here. Maybe in high school I was at the top of my class, but there’s a world of really engaging, and interesting, and bright people out there, and I don’t know if I’m in that top 20% in research,” she said. “There aren’t that many roles. It’s very competitive to get a role in academia. The pay can be significantly lower and it’s kind of a commitment to a lifestyle. If you want to stay in academia, you need to love the research. You need to love the process and that just wasn't something I loved after seeing it up close for five years with the Ph.D. and a year with the masters. I have great respect for it. It just wasn’t for me.”
That is when she began to ponder pursuing other interests, and began to question what that would mean for her. What would that look like? 
“I’m very good at understanding the science and explaining that to other people,” she said. “I am good at working with other people. I’m good at being organized and getting other people to show up for meetings and do things. Sometimes you have these other skills that are not necessarily academic and you say, ‘What can I do with these skills?’”
For example, you’re president of a club in high school. What does that translate to 10 years or even 15 years out of high school. It’s a skill. It means there are leadership abilities. It means you can maybe set a vision. You can get people to show up. You can get people to come to an event and do something, like a community service project, or a social event.
“So there’s the other skills that I realized I had that were not necessarily academic. Those are important skills,” she said. “When I put it all together, I knew I really wanted to have an impact. I wanted to do something that had a little more impact than basic research and I liked business. I thought it was great. I learned about management consulting which was a way to gain a lot of industry experience. It is high paced, competitive pay as well and it was an opportunity to move to San Francisco. “
She spent several years in management consulting. She learned a lot about the pharmaceutical industry, business, leadership, and working with executives. She took those skills and decided to go work for a pharmaceutical company. She went to work for a global generic pharmaceutical company based in Germany, just outside of Munich.
“In total I spent three years living in Munich … and worked in increasing access to more affordable medications for patients around the world. I loved doing that, spending time in Germany and a little time in Princeton, New Jersey,” she said.
Towards the end of her time with the company, she had moved to New York City and was commuting between New York and Princeton.
“A job opportunity came up in New York with Pfitzer, with a former TA (teaching assistant) of mine from college. It was someone I knew and trusted and I didn’t really want to be doing the commute anymore, so I took that job so my commute went from an hour and a half each way down to 25 minutes,” she said. “That was a really important reason for making the switch, but I realized Pfitzer really wasn’t quite the right fit for me. Even though it was closer, I’ve always been really passionate about access to medicines, affordable access to medicine. I come from a family of physicians and my family in India worked in public health, so I have these certain values that I think are important for me to try to live by. I just wasn’t that interested in working in a big pharma company.”
Kishore took a little time off and switched to working in global health. This was an organization where she helped increase access to safe vaccines in parts of Africa and Asia. It involved helping ensure fair pricing and making sure the vaccines are safe, meaning they don’t freeze, or get damaged in the heat, so they are temperature controlled.
“It also meant a lot of travel, so I got to go to some amazing places, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria, India, Thailand. It was a great way to see the world. (even if traveling coach class,” she said. In Nairobi she visited elephant and giraffe sanctuaries and went on safaris. She visited night markets in Thailand and Nigeria.
“These weren’t full blown vacations, but I think when traveling for work it can be helpful to take in the local culture, sample the local food, just try to get to know people, just so you feel connected to the community,” she said. “ I don’t like the idea of flying in from somewhere else and telling people what to do because I think I know better. I don't. It's important for me to get to know local culture and what people in the community care about.”
The continual travel abroad began to take its toll. She was tired.
While I was doing the job in global health she took a part time job as a career coach, providing leadership, helping people understand their values, and the kind of career choices they wanted to be making and helping them get to a path of leadership. She stepped away from global health and full-time into the career coach position.
“I was working with MBA’s from across the country. I ended up doing that for 11 years and I really loved that work but I ended up leaving that last year, because career coaching is really meaningful and it can have a big impact on people’s lives, but you end up solving the same problems and answering the same questions over and over. I’m just someone who likes variety and to do new things and keep learning myself.’
She had done some executive coaching for several years and decided she wanted to focus her skills, energy and talents there, so she opened her own business and is operating 100% on her own for the first time.
“I have to pay for my own health insurance, which is a different thing to navigate. When you run your own business, it means you have to develop your own product or service, get customers, you have to do all the finances. You can get help, certainly, with all these things,” she said. “I’m in the phase where I have customers and clients.”
Her tag line for her executive coaching business is, “I like to help highly analytical executives, high IQ leaders lean into their EQ to become better leaders.”
“I tend to work with a lot of scientists, engineers, and professors. At the moment, I have a lot of clients in the federal government. That’s a challenging position to be in right now for a variety of reasons,” she said. “This year, 2025 is about continuing to do my work and hopefully finding new places and new clients to work with one-on-one in a capacity to help executives be better leaders for themselves and for their employees.”
She loves the wide range of topics the position affords her to work with.
“Sometimes it is someone who has been very successful because they are very bright and they have achieved a lot, but it might be that they have never learned how to lead. Maybe they have never learned how to manage people. Sometimes you just keep getting promoted because you are really good at the thing, but suddenly you are no longer doing that thing. You are leading a team of five, 10, 100 people and you suddenly realize, ‘I never learned how to lead. Maybe I need a little help here. Maybe I need a little feedback.’
“There’s a large variety of challenges that leaders face. Could be on the more intelligence side. Could be on the more tactical side,” she said.
Kishore was voted by her senior high school class as “Most Likely to Succeed.” She has definitely met with their predictions.
While 30 years have passed since she went to school in Parsons, Kishore said she still holds dear those who impacted her the most, who made a difference, and helped her achieve where she is now. Without a doubt her music teachers had the greatest impact, Mrs. Campbell, Mr. Blackwell (at Meadow View) Mrs. Seaton, and the late Jim Kindall, whom she could not speak of without choking back tears.
“I just miss him so much,” she said. “Mr. Kindall taught me so many things. We didn’t always get along, but I think he was someone you could have a conversation and disagree with, and he challenged you all at the same time to be excellent at your craft and to be a good human.”
Then there was Mr. Olson, her cross country coach. “These are people who love what they do, who love supporting young people,” she said.
Asked what wisdom she has gained that she would pass on to young people still in high school, Kishore laughed and said, “I don’t know anything. The older you get the more you realize the less you know.
“But if I have to put forward some advice, I would say, ‘Show up. Do the work and try to learn something from everyone you meet.” 