Rishika joined in 2022 and focuses on growth-stage investments. Prior to Accel, she worked at SoftBank’s Vision Fund in San Francisco, where she evaluated growth-stage enterprise and health tech investments. Earlier in her career, she spent time at McKinsey and the public health fund Gavi. She graduated from IIT Kanpur and Harvard.
Get to know Rishika
What was your first job?
My first job as a 13-year-old was to build question papers for different high school examinations. I was a specialist at creating tricky incorrect options for multiple-choice questions for science and mathematics exams!
What’s the most impactful piece of advice you’ve received?
It is super important for me find the honesty and confidence within myself before making any decision, be it in my personal or professional life. It has somehow always been important to fully understand and believe in what I think vs. what I am supposed to think or what others might think. I have had this understanding in its nebulous form since very young. But Tara Westover helped me place this well via a quote in the book, Educated - "To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty, there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind and not in someone else’s."
What's something people are surprised to learn about you?
I am almost always up for any adventurous trip, be it a trek, a dive, or camping.
