Carnegie Mellon University

Sonia Hingorany

February 28, 2021

Alumni Spotlight: Sonia Hingorany (MBA 2015), Founder of MyMicrojourney

We're catching up with Tepper School alumna Sonia Hingorany. 

Hingorany is the founder and creator of myMicrojourney, an app that serves as a personalized career masterclass by offering a catalog of videos chronicling professional stories and experiences. She shares about her journey to the Tepper School and the story behind MyMicrojourney.

What brought you to the Tepper School?

After spending half a decade at Accenture and the last two of those five years traveling heavily, I decided to pivot my career out of consulting. I had always wanted to go back to school and thought it was the right time to take that step.

As I started to think about the types of problems I really enjoyed working on thus far in my career, I realized they all led back to where business, technology, and operations meet, and Tepper was a great fit for that. I was also keen on expanding my network and thought business school would be a great place to do so, especially at a world-renowned technical institution.

Please tell us about your path to create the MyMicrojourney app.

I have always been passionate about trying to help individuals navigate their career paths, especially in the STEM fields.

Growing up, I struggled to navigate my own path. Admittedly, I still struggle. I studied Electrical Engineering at UCLA and so many doors opened for me, which is a good problem to have, but it made it that much harder to narrow down my next steps. As I continue to talk to students and junior professionals, I have found they continue to encounter the same challenges: they don't have enough people to seek advice from, and they don't know how to connect with people that have explored different career paths and still landed on their feet.

A few years after I graduated from the Tepper School, during the summer of 2020, I started to develop a platform to serve as a personalized careers masterclass. MyMicrojourney gives people access to a catalog of videos that chronicle professional stories and experiences.

Users can watch videos of professionals in a given field who share their career path how they have navigated the challenges along the way. For the individuals sharing their experiences, it is an opportunity to give back and share their own unique path and brand with the world. I believe in brokering meaningful connections between individuals and I also believe that everyone's microjourney can inspire and influence another.

How does the app work?

MyMicrojourney features a variety of microjourneys, which are defined as short videos showcasing the highlights and lowlights of an individual's professional experience, giving just the right amount of insight and detail to send a meaningful message to their audience. Users will receive curated microjourneys that align with their unique professional profiles and will have the ability to connect with these individuals to take a conversation further if interested.

What makes it unique?

Hearing not just the highlights of one's career but also how they made it through the challenging times is critical. When we talk about our careers and share resumes, we tend to focus on all the positive things and not necessarily on the experiences that ultimately led to those positive outcomes. They can be more important than the actual outcome.

How did your time at Tepper influence your leadership today?

My time at Tepper greatly influenced my leadership today. Learning how to collaborate and lead groups with individuals that had such diverse backgrounds was truly enlightening. I learned one of the most critical skills in becoming an impactful leader during my time at Tepper, which was how to get alignment among individuals that bring different perspectives to the table.

Has the pandemic accelerated your business, or the opposite?

I attribute starting my business to the pandemic, truthfully. I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about how people want to interact in this new normal, and that's how I landed on asynchronous communication and content. Users can view the microjourney videos as they wish. There is no pressure or timeline to connect. If they want to take the interaction further, they can. It's hard to say for sure but I may have never landed on an idea of short videos to help people connect if it wasn't for the Zoom fatigue we’ve all suffered.

How does your project support diversity and inclusion?

One of the features of MyMicrojourney is that it connects individuals based on their profiles and career aspirations, taking into consideration a variety of data points to make these connections. Because of the way the platform is designed, it supports diversity and inclusion as it looks to make these connections.

Do you have any advice to share with future business leaders?

My advice is to focus on your journey as much as you focus on the outcome. The journey is what shapes us. It's what builds our confidence, it helps round out our thoughts, it picks us up after we made the mistake. The more you can do that and enjoy it, I believe the more satisfying the outcome ends up being.

Is there anything else you would like readers to know about you/ your app /your time at the Tepper School?

If you're interested in sharing your microjourney, please fill out the form! This is an opportunity to share your professional story with the world with the intent of helping students and younger professionals in navigating their first steps as they embark upon their own professional journeys.

I always welcome all and any thoughts about MyMicrojourney. Please feel free to reach out to me at sonia@mymicrojourney.com with any feedback or to connect!