Victoria G.
5.0
Law school Personal & Optional Statement support. Go to Harvard, Cornell, +
Studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Works at Octopus Group
Available Thursday at 7:00 AM UTC
Usually responds within 4 hours
At capacity for full package / Round 2 MBA clients. Please only book an intro call if you're OK to commence working together on Jan 12 at earliest, or if you are looking for: secondary review of a complete application / help getting off a waitlist / ding analysis / etc.
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Victoria’s Law School Qualifications
Coaches professionally
Open to working with clients outside the U.S.
Victoria has helped clients get into these schools:
I have a degree in English from the University of Cambridge, and I am a former news journalist, relentlessly avid writer, and Stanford MBA. My first law school client came from a military background. We worked together from the get-go on her Personal Statement, Optional and Diversity Statements, resume, and preparing for interviews She got into: Harvard, Cornell, Michigan, Vanderbilt, GWU, Syracuse, Boston College and Colorado. She's now at Harvard Law School since Fall 2024! 🏆 I have since helped many law school applicants from all kinds of background write winning applications for many other schools.
Victoria can help with:
Recommendations
Interviews
School Selection
Application Strategy
CAS Application Edit
Essays
Resume
About Victoria
Hi there, I'm Vica. I am a double émigrée (age 7: Russia -> UK, age 24: UK -> US.. and then back again to London at 28), former Silicon Valley tech executive and startup founder, now working on the investor side focusing on for-good financial services at Octopus Group. I grew up poor and watched my mum make some crazy sacrifices to get us out of Russia, then out of UK council (state-provided) housing, & into a life full of amazing opportunities and adventures. I studied English literature at the University of Cambridge, spent 3 years at a top-tier strategy consulting firm in London, then got into Stanford GSB on the day I turned 24 - with an 80% tuition discount / scholarship. I worked at Salesforce, directed sales at a startup, then raised $300K for my own venture from Silicon Valley angels and VCs. I moved from an F1 visa to a H-1B visa, and went through a denial of admission on the border - so I know both the pros and the cons of moving to the US via a degree program intimately well. I was NOT a likely candidate for Stanford - too young, state-schooled, non-MBB, non-STEM, wonky GMAT (99th percentile verbal, 55th non-verbal 😆)... But I AM a strong, persuasive storyteller, incisive editor, & expert seller. I never used an admissions consultant myself because I could not afford one. The one I spoke to for a free 30-min consultation told me to give up hope on my dream schools... but I got into GSB and INSEAD without professional support, and proved her wrong. I was FOR SURE an underdog in every process I ended up successfully completing. With my help, it can work out for you too. You CAN do this! The only failure is not to try at all. These days I coach students for business school, law school, doctorate programs, recruitment, and career advice. If you want to work on something not on this list, let me know - happy to offer a steep discount to expand my expertise!
Why do I coach?
After over a year on Leland, I can confidently say: I LOVE being a coach. There's nothing so singularly rewarding as helping lift someone a rung higher on the ladder of life. (What you DO with that privilege is another question!) Every "textbook" achievement I have managed to pull off was both unlikely-as-heck going in, AND utterly life-changing. The opportunities on the other side are endless. It would be an insult to my values not to attempt to share them with others. I'm hell-bent on working efficiently (ie, charging you the absolute minimum amount of hours needed to achieve your goals). That's important for me because I was shocked to find out that ~80% (anecdotal data) of my peers at the GSB used one - and the majority of my peers at Cambridge were private-schooled. I am living proof that you DON'T need to be born rich to get into these institutions, and a passionate believer in expanding access to first-gen, low-income, and/or international 'underdogs'. I'm here on Leland for YOU.
Work Experience
Portfolio Strategy & Inorganic Growth
Octopus Group
July 2024 - Present
Octopus Group is a £14B privately-held alternative investments firm in the UK. I'm working closely with the founders of their financial services and fintech portfolio on strategy, ops, and M&A. If you had told me even a year ago I'd be joining Team Investor, I'd have been incredulous... never say never!
CEO
Migo
August 2023 - May 2024
Led a vast strategic transformation of a mobile content distribution company, recalibrating it to be a social enterprise aimed at bridging the digital divide in Emerging Markets, starting with SE Asia. Amazing work, but not enough $ in non-profit land to pay off my student loans.
Co-founder & CEO
Callity
September 2021 - May 2023
Founded a startup during my last couple of Quarters at Stanford, to address a huge problem in B2B SaaS sales. Took it through Startup Garage (a famous Stanford d-school class). Ultimately pivoted into complex enterprise SaaS, with an initial focus on cybersecurity. Went FT on it as soon as I graduated. Recruited and led a team of 4, raised $300k angel funding, booked $40k ARR, built and shipped a marketplace MVP. Wound it down due to changing market conditions (less appetite from enterprise buyers for 'taking risks' with smaller vendors). Toughest and most rewarding 1.5years of my life 😊
Director of Sales & Ops
RELAYTO/ Content Experience 🪄
January 2021 - September 2021
Wanted to try early-stage, and sales. Convinced the founder on a 1.5h first call to give me a chance. Closed $50k of business, and left them with $200k oppportunity (ie >50% likely-to-close) pipeline. Offered COO/CRO role.
MBA Intern, Strategy & Operations
Salesforce
June 2020 - December 2020
Got a summer internship in the SF office (virtually) and then took a Leave of Absence, extended the internship and got "transferred" to the UK office. Stayed working for the same high-calibre team throughout. Got a FT offer.
Associate
OC&C Strategy Consultants
September 2016 - June 2019
Applied during my 2nd year at Cambridge. Did the International Strategy Week program, and was offered a FT role at the end of it. Applied for business school while there, though ultimately chose not to accept funding/commit to coming back.
Education
Stanford Graduate School of Business
MBA, Business
2019 - 2022
Generalist 1st year, focused on entrepreneurial track 2nd year (eg Startup Garage, Innovator's Dilemma for which I was TA, & the Eric Schmidt VC/Ent class). Took 2 quarters out halfway through during the pandemic, to dodge virtual b-school.
University of Cambridge
BA/MA (Cantab), English
2013 - 2016
I applied for and interviewed at King's College and got pooled. I then interviewed at Fitzwilliam and Churchill, and got an offer from Churchill. (Will never know if Fitz wanted me too! Apparently, hilariously, in that situation the student's fate is sealed by a coin toss 😆.)
Victoria was also personally admitted to
INSEAD
University of Durham
35 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Knowledge
5.0
Value
5.0
Responsiveness
5.0
Supportiveness
5.0
Victoria has helped clients get into these schools:
Victoria has helped Leland clients get into Thai Union Group PCL