Vikas Mouli

Vikas Mouli came to HBS with the intention of learning as much as he could about resource related industries like energy, food, and water. So he was methodical in selecting a relevant summer internship.

“I viewed the summer internship as an opportunity to delve deeply in and contribute substantively to a specific subsector in a way that would complement my academic and extracurricular experiences.”

Finding the right internship was a learning experience in itself. Vikas says the process enabled him to explore a diverse set of opportunities, including in distributed solar generation, smart building systems, precision agricultural hardware, and oilfield waste management.

Through these discussions, Vikas says he was able to define his selection criteria before ultimately accepting a position with Advantek Waste Management Services, a growth-stage company focused on using proprietary techniques to safely dispose of solids, muds, and water from oil and gas drilling and production activities.

“Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have been deployed far faster than requisite advances in waste management,” Vikas explains. “Continuous improvements on this front will be a critical enabler to the continued development and long-term sustainability of oil and gas reserves.”

Vikas worked directly with the CEO, Omar Abou-Sayed (HBS Class of 2004), on core strategic and financial considerations. Some of the questions they addressed included whether to own or co-develop sites with partners, how to simultaneously gain scale and deploy capital efficiently, and what other technologies could complement Advantek’s.

“As much as I learned about this industry and company over the summer, I’ve learned as much or more about myself,” Vikas says.

Before enrolling at HBS, Vikas was a private equity investor at TPG Growth and served as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Barclays Capital, focusing on the power and utilities sector. After graduation he’s interested in returning to an investing role to support the growth of innovative companies improving access to clean resources.

“I’d like to work with companies that take fresh approaches to these longstanding issues, providing strategic direction and operational expertise in addition to patient capital,” he says. “I’d also like to serve as a steward and evangelist for the fundamental idea that environmental challenges can be environmental opportunities. Industries like waste management can be seen as mundane, but are often at the forefront of the innovation required to reimagine how we use and renew the resources around us.”