Rhenu Bhuller is a Partner & Senior Vice President – Transformational Health at Frost & Sullivan, and also a founding member of the consulting firm’s APAC operations in Singapore. She has been at the forefront of pioneering new initiatives here in the region, working with clients globally across developed and emerging markets. She is part of F&S's global Visionary Innovation group as well as a thought leader within the Transformational Health team. 

With a background in sales and marketing and 20 years of research and consulting experience, Rhenu has worked with both global MNCs as well as regional companies in market strategy, industry convergence and business model innovation to take advantage of mega trends and related opportunities.  

She satisfactorily states that she has been fortunate to learn from the job and gain experience during her early times that enhanced her abilities. However, with industry 4.0 now, the pace of learning and level of information available as well as the computational ability has dramatically increased. 

Rhenu was quite open about the topic of gender disparity. She noted, “Data shows that women, including those at Frost & Sullivan, start out at full speed. The number of men and women on staff are close when you add up the junior and mid-levels. However, women drop off considerably as you move up the ladder.” 

Rhenu is also extremely passionate about equality and diversity, and leads the APAC professional women network for the firm, designed to create the foundations for growth and leadership of women in making a positive impact on the economy and business. This new initiative started by F&S for women - Growth and Leadership of Women (GLOW) - will encourage and help incorporate more women into critical corporate decision-making and bring in the diversity that is so needed in today’s business environment. 

Rhenu has taken challenging roles, and excelled in them at international levels – be it taking the role of Managing Director of F&S Australian operations or being partner at the firm - the first female partner in Asia, first Malaysian, and only 1 of 3 women worldwide. 

Coming from a family of sports enthusiasts, fitness is something Rhenu has enjoyed since her childhood. Even work pressures and travel demands haven’t dampened this, and she makes all efforts to accommodate workout sessions despite her busy schedule. At this stage of her career, what really motivates her is seizing opportunities that will help her give back to the society, while still maintaining a balance between career and family.

Talking about the role model, Rhenu says her father has always been an inspiration to her from an extremely young age. The values that he held and that he taught her in terms of work and personal ethics, sharing and caring for those who may not have as much as we have and always seeing the good in people. 

“My other inspiration was my maternal grandmother who in the 1950s was an entrepreneur who started her own successful business, ignoring those who told her it would be a failure and that women could not do business, so even at that time she showed us what strength women had. And that strength came through from my mother as well who brought my sisters and I up as strong women - she told us to never give up on what you wanted and always aim to succeed. We never felt that there was something we could not do because we were female and our parents always reinforced to us to be independent,” she recalls.