A Fugitive from the Law of Averages
 Caroline Angoorly
Alumni
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"The one thing I would say to people who view MBAs as an instant ticket to a career change, is that it doesn't quite work that way."
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Since her MBA ten years ago, she's left a secure partnership with a prestigious law firm, survived the dot-com crash, pioneered renewable energy projects and reinvented her career in business.
In between all that she's also managed to take her first real break in 20 years and spend a memorable summer sabbatical in New York.
For Caroline Angoorly, now J.P. Morgan's head of Environmental Markets - North America, her MBA was not just a catalyst for a career change, it helped make sense of, and more efficiently leverage, existing experience.
Prior to doing her MBA Caroline's background included a combined geology and law degree from Monash and a lucky start with law firm Blake & Riggall, now Blake Dawson Waldron, doing project financing. This is a particular form of structured financing used to build big infrastructure projects such as refineries, power plants or toll roads.
According to Caroline, she would start with a blank sheet of paper and a green field and end up with a great volume of projects. She says, "For me, the appeal of project financing is solving this enormous jig saw puzzle-including say, engineering, construction, fuel procurement, selling power, getting environmental permits, making sure ports and jettyies are built-to end up with a power station in Indonesia for people who may not have had electricity before."
After seven years in her first job, including an 18-month stint in San Francisco, Caroline was hooked on project financing and single-minded in her pursuit of a role which would enable her to do it all the time-the Australian market being too small to support such an ambition.
She moved to law firm Milbank Tweed. "It was the beginning of 1993 when I heard about an American law firm which was looking for a senior attorney for their Singapore office. I went and spoke to the head-hunter and it became clear that they were looking for me. My job was to convince them they'd found me."
Changing direction
Of course she was successful and she moved to Singapore in 1994. By 1997 when the Asian crisis started to take hold, Caroline had been made a partner. At 32, she was one of the youngest partners in the firm and the first foreign attorney to make partner without a stint in the New York head office.
Despite this, she now had a burning desire to get into business, so she made the decision to return to Australia to study at Melbourne Business School for her MBA.
After graduating, Caroline returned to Milbank, this time working in Hong Kong. Interestingly, it was an MBS connection that sent Caroline on her next career journey.
One night her cell phone rang. It was one of her classmates from MBS.
He said, "Hey, we're setting up a B2B e-commerce company in LA and we need a CFO. Come and join us."
She thought, that sounds interesting but I'm a partner of a fabulous law firm. I've got commitments here. I couldn't possibly adjust. It's all just too risky and whacky.
The reality was that after she hung up she thought, why not?
"At some point I wanted to end up more permanently in the US and move into business, and this was one way to do it.
"It was mid-2000, the start of the dot-com crash, and a horrible time to join an internet start-up in California. I was there for a year, all of us scrabbling for money and to make this thing work before we could sell it to other interests. Frankly it was a great experience and I would do it all again but it was different from what I expected."
Her next two roles were with a subsidiary of large European energy company, Enel, which involved, amongst other things, pioneering carbon offsetting. When Enel relocated to Boston, she joined NRG Energy, a power company emerging from bankruptcy and looking to move to a greener future. Caroline was invited to come along for the ride as the company's "environmental czar."
"I had no idea what it was going to entail", she recalls. "But the words that came out of my mouth were, ‘wow, that sounds intriguing. Of course I'm interested'."
It was her first completely non-legal role which Caroline frankly attributes to her MBA, now five years old.
"The one thing I would say to people who view MBAs as an instant ticket to a career change, is that it doesn't quite work that way," she advises. "It's a necessary part of changing your pathway, but not sufficient. It's more a matter of finding someone to give you an opportunity."
Time for a break
After three years of 80-hour weeks, including a two-hour commute each way, Caroline finally admitted she'd had enough.
"I was 42 and for the first time in my life I thought I would take a sabbatical over summer, and just enjoy living in Manhattan, seeing Broadway plays and thinking about my next move."
As it happened, a social coffee with a new friend sparked a three month interviewing process with J.P. Morgan and an eventual invitation to join the Global Commodities Group in a project financing function.
"I thought, why not?"
Caroline now runs the Environmental Markets business. She explains. "My role is working with clients to meet their compliance needs or their environmental activities as part of their brand differentiation or overall business strategy; structuring transactions in renewable energy credits, carbon offsets and carbon allowances to de-risk their environmental profile and bring them into compliance; or, if they are in the voluntary market, like Apple or Walmart, using environmental pro-activity to differentiate them. For example, they can require their suppliers to have certain environmental performance standards that they have to meet as part of their relationships."
Caroline has now been out of Australia professionally since 1994. She maintains connections through MBS, otherwise her industry focus is mostly in the US.
What does she do for fun, when she's not working her normal 60 to 70 hour week?
She says, "I'm a jazz fan and I fancy myself as an amateur photographer with a minimal amount of talent."
One suspects it might be the only thing that's "minimal" about her.
