About Sital Ruparelia
Little Sital
Sital’s Background:
Sital is the son of refugee parents with Indian heritage. He was born in Uganda, Africa, grew up in the UK, and started his career in London. Since 2012, Sital has been based in Singapore / Asia.
With this comes Asian values, a Western mindset, and an African sense of community – all combined with an English accent.
As you can see from ‘Little Sital’s’ picture – suited style – he was destined for the corporate world. The bellbottom trousers and sandals were also a clue that he’d be a corporate boy with his own unique approach: Sital’s Perfectly Imperfect Way.
Sital’s Career:
Sital’s 25+ year career spans commercial leadership, recruitment, career, and talent management roles in the Technology, Financial Services, and Retail sectors.
Across every role, he’s helped individuals and organizations navigate transformation, growth, and change.
Here are some highlights:
- Microsoft: Led Asia’s Executive Talent Acquisition team during a period of hypergrowth, as Microsoft underwent cultural transformation and shifted to the Cloud. Sital and his team played a pivotal role in hiring transformational leadership that contributed to Microsoft becoming a $3 trillion tech leader driving next era of innovation.
- Marks & Spencer: Led teams during the high-growth period for the iconic British retailer and later supported teams through cultural change during one of its toughest trading periods in a century. He also played a key role in project-managing major retail tech rollouts — including point-of-sale system upgrades and Y2K readiness.
- Barclays: Spearheaded the hiring of senior leaders for the UK Retail Banking overhaul, helping transform it into a more customer-centric, digital-first business. This included bringing in non-traditional talent and supporting the early shift to online and mobile banking.
- SEI Investments: Helped the NASDAQ-listed investment platform expand across Europe and the Middle East by hiring senior talent from global banks. SEI provides wealth, investment, and advisory solutions to institutional clients.
- Startups & Venture Mentorship: Sital works with early-stage startups as a fractional Talent/HR Partner, and mentors founders through WNJ Ventures, a Hong Kong-based VC firm. Areas of focus include HRTech, CareerTech, and RecruitmentTech — often leveraging AI to solve talent challenges.
- Dot.com Boom and 9/11: Recruited for investment banks and asset managers during a red-hot market, then pivoted quickly to navigate a sharp downturn after 9/11.
- Global Financial Crisis: Provided 1:1 career transition coaching to over 300 leaders across London’s financial services sector, including professionals from Goldman Sachs, CitiBank, JP Morgan, and Accenture.
- Shopkeeper’s Son: Like many immigrant children, Sital helped in his father’s convenience store on weekends. Those years taught him commercial awareness, humility, community values — and a strong work ethic that continues to shape his style today.
Early Career Sital
What Sital Brings:
Sital’s journey may be varied — but that’s part of the strength he brings to today’s tech-powered, fast-changing world of work.
- Talent Mindset, Business Lens: An eye for talent and a deep understanding of how to align hiring, succession, and development to drive business outcomes.
- Tech-Literate, People-Focused: Not a coder — but has spent his career hiring, enabling, and advising tech teams across sectors and geographies.
- Career Reinvention (Lived & Led): Has coached individuals and led teams through reinvention across hypergrowth, downturns. But also lived the journey through his own career reinventions.
- Well-Connected & Trusted: A natural connector with a broad, cross-industry network — often tapped for guidance, introductions and insights.
- Clarity in Complexity, the Perfectly Imperfect Way: Brings balance, energy, and momentum to fast-moving environments — with high empathy, emotional intelligence, and the agility to adapt while guiding others through change.
“I was consistently impressed with Sital’s eye for talent, his ability to steer execs towards opportunity, and the way he established himself as trusted counsel to many leaders in the market considering their career purpose.”
“Sital has an exceptional ability to connect emerging trends to people, skills, and job roles — and his 4-stage reinvention framework is incredibly effective in today’s era of AI and disruption.”
“It’s not his capability that sets Sital apart (which is very pronounced), it’s his attitude, personal drive and charisma. I’d work with him again above all other recruiters and consultants.”
“Sital brings a rare mix of warmth, speed, and professionalism — a combination that’s been invaluable in a startup environment. Thanks to Sital, our team is stronger, more cohesive, and better positioned for success.”