Finance & Aviation Overview

Fellow presentation and intro to your career path

My name is Nidhi Trambadia, the numbers gal, and I’m happy to share my experiences with you in the hopes of making you a future numbers person! I’m currently a Sr. Financial Analyst with Air Wisconsin Airlines; now let me walk you through some history! 

I would like to think of my life in 3 parts: I was born in India, I grew up in Kenya, and I grew as a person in the US! I have spent almost a decade in each country and learned about diverse cultures, people, languages and most important of all, cuisines. While India is draped in cultural values and powerful spices, Kenya offers subtlety and warmth, and the US portrays a strong and welcoming spirit for everyone, no matter what their background is! My father moved to Kenya in 2006 for a job opportunity. I completed the 8^th grade in India and during summer holidays of 2007 along with my mother and brother, went to visit my father. It was a lot of firsts - first time in an airplane, first ever international trip and little did I know, my first ever adventure. A vacation turned into a new life as I ended up staying in Kenya with my father while the rest of my family made their way back to India. Fast forward from school years, I completed my Bachelor’s in Kenya, and then moved to the US in 2015 to pursue my master's degree(s). YES, multiple degrees, lol! It started with an MS in Aviation, then MBA and finally, an MS in Aviation Finance! 

My brother is my true inspiration for selecting the aviation industry – he decided to pursue a career as a commercial pilot almost a decade ago. With support and encouragement from my entire family to move to a new country and start a new life, I decided to also do some research in the field. To my surprise, aviation offers a variety of career choices, depending on your interests! I simply wanted to take my love for numbers and turn it into a meaningful career – ta-da FINANCE in AVIATION! As you know, finance exists everywhere – this world would not function without skilled folks who can interpret numbers and translate them into important economics.

I was a kid with just about average ambition and not many concrete future plans, but with guidance from my parents, hard work, drive, and consistency towards learning brought me where I am today. My career path was not always defined or clear, but I made progress as I moved along and started recognizing opportunities. As the saying goes, plans are nothing, planning is everything!
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Finance/Aviation career options 

Below are a few options available as career choices in the finance/aviation industry. From Accounting to Sales, pretty much any business management career is applicable in the aviation industry – I call it the industry of industries! Just FYI, in the following career path options, you should expect to begin as an Analyst (for example, a Financial Analyst) and progress through distinct roles (senior analyst, manager, etc.) as you gain more experience.

• ‍Finance
  As a Financial Analyst, you would wear the ‘protector’ of your company’s money hat – basically, you will be introduced to financial models that can help the company understand its current financial health, cost saving opportunities and how to improve overall financial health (for example, by investing in marketable securities).
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• Revenue Management
  As a Revenue Management Analyst, you would wear the ‘how can I generate more revenue’ hat. This role is closely related to the Network Planning role below because airlines generally plan profitable routes where there is more traffic between cities and from where and to more passengers are willing to fly. A popular route example is LAS (Las Vegas) - LOS (Los Angeles) - airlines that dominate this route have a competitive advantage over a new airline that might be considering flying this route.
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• Network Planning
  As a Network Planning Analyst, you should expect to learn the ins and outs of route planning (which cities to fly to and from, what time of the year, what time of the day – all the fun details). In my opinion, this is an exciting role as you work with almost every department – revenue, finance, and treasury! In order to understand how profitable a certain route is, you must also know all the expenses involved, such as landing fees or ground service expenses – this is where finance and treasury provide input that helps the Network Planning team make effective decisions.
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• Aircraft Financing and Leasing
  This is a unique role where you would learn all the details about the leasing world including aviation legal and regulatory framework, how aircraft are funded and how companies make decisions of whether to buy or lease aircraft. Understanding business needs, maintenance plans and spending power leads to healthy decision making for this role.
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• Treasury
  Generally, Treasury is a part of Finance (as is Accounting) whereby you would focus on managing the company’s cash flow, risk management, corporate finance and borrowing and corporate insurance.‍

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‍Main hard skills you use on daily basis in your current job

• Microsoft Excel
  ‍This software is the most crucial part of my job. Gaining the knowledge of advanced formulas and formatting in Excel has been generously helpful in my modeling skills. It helps me look at a number and know if it is correct – it is a great tool to acquire!
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• Microsoft PowerPoint
  ‍Preparing slides is an easy task, however, the challenging part is the content in those slides – trying to fit a 7-tab model in 2 or 3 slides to present to senior leadership is certainly a skill I have learned by practicing over the years!
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• ThinkCell
  ‍I use this visual aid software to prepare charts and graphs to visually display results (financial and operational).
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• SQL
  ‍I also use SQL queries to narrow down results from large datasets. Understanding formulas and formats in SQL is important to getting the right information.
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I learned these skills by practicing Excel formulas in my classes and for assignments and learning on my own from platforms like LinkedIn Learning and YouTube videos. Some companies also include Excel tests during their interview process, which is also a good motivating factor to practice basic Excel formulas.
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• I remember prepping for Excel prior to an interview and learning the use of Pivot Tables in detail. 
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• Other formulas that come in handy are IF Statements (SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIFS), VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, INDEXMATCH, SUMPRODUCT, EDATE, EOMONTH, etc.
  

PowerPoint is also an excellent tool to highlight findings in summarized versions to an audience. It is extremely important to know the correct amount of content to display on a slide, and the correct number of details to present to your audience. If you explore PowerPoint, you will notice that slide layouts have certain font sizes – there is a reason the font sizes are large – the slide is not supposed to provide all details in words, that is where your presentation/speaking skills come in place.

Soft skills you use on daily basis in your current job

• Analytical skills
  ‍I spend most of my time building financial models and analyzing historical and current data to perform futuristic forecasting. Taking raw data and turning it into meaningful information is where your true analytical skills shine. It is a great skill that comes in handy when analyzing numbers – numbers tell a story!
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• Communication skills
  ‍I spend a significant amount of time communicating with several departments within my company. From asking questions about certain payments that the company makes to understanding how certain outside vendors are impacting our operations – I interact extensively with Payroll, Accounting, Operations, and other departments. This provides me with a platform to build better relations with different departments and understand where the company’s money is being spent.
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• Problem-solving skills
  ‍This is a critical skill to first figure out problems and then work with people to find solutions. An example comes to mind – our accounting team has been having issues with an outside vendor, because this vendor has been providing inaccurate information. We as a team identified this problem, and a sufficient solution is to change the vendor. This decision (almost finalized) came into place because of multiple mistakes from the vendor. Finding the root cause and then figuring out a sufficient solution is what problem-solving is all about!
  
  

Your personal path 

😊 the smile at the beginning here is because I just remembered my job-searching journey. I graduated during a very difficult time, May 2020 when COVID was at its peak and the world had basically shut down. I had two solid leads for jobs; unfortunately, the folks who were going to hire me were laid off as part of their company’s cost-cutting strategies. After 462 applications, I got my current job as a Financial Analyst. 

I got the call, finally! I cried profusely after hanging up and just sat still. After months of struggle, multiple rejections (in a strict sense, 462 rejections), very few interviews and unfathomable stress, I just sat there and cried. The next call was to my parents in Kenya, and you guessed it, more tears! It all felt so overwhelming and scary, but exciting that it was finally time to commence walking on my own professional path. The only one thing that I did not let myself do was give up, especially on the days when it was extremely tough to keep going. I applied for all relevant roles posted on as many company websites as I could find!

The interview process was simple – the initial call was with HR, the next call with the hiring manager and the final call was with the VP of the department. Prior to the HR call though, I attended my current company’s (Air Wisconsin Airlines) information sessions that were organized through my school, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University – I took an interest in the company, learned about the organizational structure and learned about the hiring manager from this info session – point is, you never know who you may talk to, so I would highly recommend attending such company info sessions, especially if you are interested in the role or the organization! You might not get what you were looking for exactly, but every experience will mold you into a better version who can keep learning and growing!

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