Rumki Fernandes

Executive Coach | Leadership Advisor | Chief People Officer

Rumki Fernandes is an executive coach and leadership advisor with deep experience working with senior leaders, CEOs, and leadership teams across large organizations. With a career spanning media, communications, technology, ed-tech, and banking, she brings a unique blend of business acumen, people strategy, and ontological coaching to her work with leaders.

Over the course of her career, Rumki has partnered closely with C-suite leaders, directors to navigate transformation, growth, M&A integration, and complex organizational change across APAC, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Her work is grounded in the belief that sustainable results are created by expanding how leaders see, relate, and take action—not just by changing structures or strategies.

Leadership & Coaching Focus

Rumki works extensively with senior and emerging leaders on:
Executive presence and leadership effectiveness
Navigating complexity, ambiguity, and scale
Strategic people leadership and talent decisions
Leading through transformation and change
Building trust, accountability, and high-performance cultures
Strength-based leadership and effectiveness

Her coaching style is direct, reflective, and deeply human, supporting leaders to surface blind spots, access new possibilities for action and sustain behaviour change.

Executive Leadership Experience
Most recently, Rumki serves as Chief People Officer, APAC at Grey Group (WPP), where she was a key member of the global leadership team. In this role, she partneres with regional and global leaders to shape people strategy, lead senior-level talent decisions, and develop leadership capability across markets with a cumulative headcount of over 2,000 employees.

Her work included:
Coaching and advising senior leaders across multiple countries
Driving leadership hiring, succession, and development
Supporting CEOs through organizational redesign and cultural shifts
Leading HR strategy for acquisitions and integrations
Mentoring HR and business leaders to operate as trusted advisors

Earlier in her career, Rumki held senior HR leadership roles at Deutsche Bank (DBOI Global Services), Manpower Services, Attano Media & Education, and ABC Consultants, where she consistently worked at the intersection of business strategy, leadership development, and organizational effectiveness.

Coaching Credentials & Approach

Gallup CliftonStrengths Certified Coach
Trained through senior leadership programs at WPP (Maestro, Walk the Talk)
Currently pursuing Newfield Ontological Coaching programs

Her work integrates strengths-based coaching, ontological distinctions, and real-world leadership experience, making her particularly effective with leaders operating in complex, high-stakes environments.