The joy for me was always seeing people I'd mentored go on to lead, take on larger roles, and carry more responsibility.
The rank of office is not what makes someone a leader. Leadership is the choice to serve others with or without any formal rank." These words from Simon Sinek's popular book, 'Leaders Eat Last,' ring profoundly true for Renuu Tandon.
Renuu's career is marked by some big names (WNS Global Services and Hutchison 3G, to name a few) and bigger responsibilities, having headed the Human Resources (HR) function at Affinity Express India, Rohan Builders, and MarketsandMarkets™.
Today, what she does is far harder to label. And that's precisely the point.
the early years
Renuu is a natural leader, confident and outspoken. The older of two children, she was always willing to lead from the front, even as a child – an instinct, she believes, came from the environment she grew up in.
Renuu was raised by working parents who led by quiet example. Her mother, who retired as a school vice principal, and her father, a senior scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune, instilled in their children a sense of independence, self-assurance and deep regard for doing things well.
"It wasn't about academic scores; it was about knowing things, doing things, and engaging with the world," Renuu says. And that's precisely what she did. After completing her undergraduate degree in Mathematics, Renuu planned to pursue Mass Communications. She was accepted into a course at prestigious MICA but had to decline for personal reasons. A detour that rerouted her career, the path she treads today.
Renuu began her professional journey at WNS Global Services, first in operations and then quality. During this time, she earned a degree in Personnel Management, drawn not to HR policy or procedure, but to its human potential.
"HR was never by design. I'm not your classic, textbook HR person," she says. "The policy side felt too detached from people and business. What drew me in was industrial relations, organisational transformation and change management. That's where the real action was."
She found her way into learning and development (L&D), where people, purpose and performance met—and where she began to see leadership as something lived, not labelled.
on finding her "why."
Renuu moved quickly through the ranks at WNS, rising into leadership with an ease that revealed her natural instincts. "I wanted to keep getting better at what I did," she says. By 24, she was already managing a 40-member team. This early leadership role sharpened her ability to bring people together, manage complexity, and ground herself in competence.
We ask what helped her build and lead successful teams? Her answer is classic Renuu—observant, measured, and rooted in lived experience. "Some of the most remarkable leaders are effective as a function of their teams," she says. Leaders who leave a legacy aren't the ones who believe they're the smartest in the room. They're the ones who recognise and harness their team's potential—and keep space for their own learning."
This philosophy shaped not only her success but also her sense of fulfilment. "The joy for me was always seeing people I'd mentored go on to lead, take on larger roles, and carry more responsibility. That's when I knew I'd led well."
She's quick to share credit. "All of them are immensely talented. But I think it was a combination of their drive and my giving them the space to grow. You have to trust people. Micromanagement never works—something I learned early on from one of my first managers, Gopali Gandhi, at WNS."
After nearly a decade at WNS, Renuu was ready for a new chapter—on her terms, as always. She shifted industries with every move, seeking breadth and depth. "I wanted to learn from different ecosystems," she says. Civil engineering, telecom, digital advertising, consulting, startups—each stint added a new layer to her understanding of people and business. She also consulted for a few years, steadily laying the groundwork for a future she'd long envisioned.
Today, Renuu runs her own consulting firm, QuantumFortuna Consulting. She is an HR and business excellence assessor with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) leads assessment teams to evaluate HR practices for some of the largest organisations, from L&T and Crisil to Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Finance, and Indian Oil.
She's a Professional Certified Coach, a Global Member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and a senior practitioner at the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC)—she's still learning, mentoring, and leading.
women in leadership
The path to leadership, though deeply fulfilling, hasn't been without hurdles. Gender, unsurprisingly, shaped parts of Renuu's journey in quiet but consequential ways. She recalls being overlooked for on-site international projects, not because she wasn't qualified but because it was assumed she couldn't travel. Men in leadership often chose male teammates with whom they were friends and could hang out after work.
"Too often, your accomplishments and capabilities are overshadowed by personal preferences," she says. "It was one of the reasons I left my job—I realised that merit alone wouldn't be enough. I just wasn't going to make the cut."
And it's not just her story. "Unconscious bias is everywhere—not just in HR, but in sales and across business functions. The irony is that women make up the majority of MBA grads in HR, but how many become CHROs? Look at the Nifty 50—most CHROs are men. So yes, there's a glass ceiling. There are personal choices. But there are also systemic, internal and external biases that organisations need to actively dismantle."
As a leadership coach, much of Renuu's work involves helping others unlearn the residue of these patterns. Women tend to embrace limiting beliefs more than men. Research shows that women often wait until they feel more than 100% ready to apply for a role. Men, on the other hand, jump in even if they aren't fully prepared. It's not just about confidence but about the sky-high standards women set for themselves to prove their worth."
It's also about visibility. "There's a lack of role models," she says. "Women don't always have someone to look up to who's done similar work, or someone they can reach out to for mentorship or sponsorship. Even when a woman is ready for leadership, the system may not be ready for her."
Renuu has made it a point to change this in her capacity as a Global Champion and Group Mentor for the UN Women's Empower Women initiative. As an MRG Leader at the International Coaching Federation's DEIB initiative, she works with passionate changemakers on diversity, inclusion, and equity.
She uses her platform and events to share best practices and spotlight real stories, building a stronger, more visible pipeline of changemakers. All while continuing her core work as a coach, helping others lead without apology.
so, what is coaching anyway?
Coaching is one of the most misunderstood professions.
Coaches aren't mentors. "If I'm a mentor, I've ridden the same bike on the same path. I'm more experienced and offering what I've learned to you," explains Renuu. "A coach, on the other hand, may not know how to ride that bike—but they'll ask: Why this bike? What do you want from the ride? Where are you hoping it takes you? And how will you pave your path to get there? Mentoring is about offering answers. Coaching is about unlocking potential."
Coaches aren't therapists either. While therapy often explores the past, coaching is focused on the future. "ICF draws a clear line," says Renuu. We don't take on the role of therapist or counsellor. Many psychology professionals may also be trained coaches, but in a coaching conversation, you wear one hat only—that of a coach and focus on the client."
Coaches don't tell you what you're doing wrong. They don't need to be experts in your field. So what do they do?
As personal accounts often describe, a coach is a "thinking partner," "an outside view," or "a non-judgmental sounding board." They help you work through specific personal or professional challenges, sharpen your leadership style and make better decisions.
Who is coaching for? "Coaching can be for anyone," Renuu says without hesitation. You could be an entrepreneur looking to scale your business, a newly promoted executive finding your feet, someone seeking purpose, or someone transitioning through some of life's unprecedented challenges like divorce, displacements, or career pivots.
We often think of coaching as the exclusive domain of corner offices and C-suite executives. And while executive coaching is undoubtedly a large and established practice, it's only one part of the picture.
"There are B2B and B2C spaces within coaching," Renuu explains. "A company will hire a coach to support a leader or team towards specific business outcomes. Or individuals—mid-career professionals, people in transition, someone navigating loss—will seek coaching for personal growth."
From the NHS in the UK to the national armed forces, from universities to boardrooms, coaching today is present in more spaces than people realise. It appears wherever a human navigates change, challenge, or growth. It is a fantastic way to carve the path to living your purpose and achieving your goals.
"At the end of the day," says Renuu, "coaching is about people. Once you strip away the title, salary, and symbols, we're all people trying to make sense of something."
She believes the idea that coaching is only for senior leaders will shift with time. "Right now, it's restricted to the top because that's where the market is most mature. But in the next five years, coaching will be far more accessible. In the West, this shift began 15 or 20 years ago. In India, we're just getting started."
With greater access, the impact could be exponential. "Growth is about potential, not position. Who's to say only a titleholder has potential worth investing in?"
Renuu's path to coaching
Renuu found herself in coaching roles quite naturally.
"Some people build their whole careers in one lane—from recruitment to retirement," she says. "That's never been me."
She began in learning and development and moved fluidly across HR roles and industries, always seeking new challenges. "With every job, I was learning something different. And I always had the urge to do more alongside my main job."
Her earliest brush with coaching came unexpectedly. "I was working on the Virgin Atlantic account at WNS. They had an initiative called 'team leader as coach', the first time I trained as a coach and it planted the seed."
"The more I experienced coaching, the more I felt aligned with its purpose. It wasn't a detour. It was a direction."
It also felt future-facing. "AI is transforming how we work. Many traditional HR roles—payroll, recruitment, business partnering, compliance—will be automated. So what's next for HR?"
For Renuu, the answer lies in what cannot be automated. "High-tech industries will need high-touch. You'll need counsellors, coaches, and mentors who can your talent and thrive."
And then there's the global appeal.
"With HR, you're tied to local rules—state laws, tax codes, employment acts. But coaching? Coaching is global. The profession has international standards, and its principles are universally human. It's a profession for tomorrow."
choosing your tribe
We bring up comments from senior corporate leaders in India endorsing 70-hour work weeks or weekend hustle culture that triggered widespread outrage. But are these extreme expectations really the norm in corporate India today?
Renuu doesn't think so.
"Today, it's more value- and outcome-driven," she says. "It's not about clocking long hours just to be seen."
She's seen the shift firsthand, across industries and leadership styles. And while toxic work cultures do exist, Renuu cautions against painting all of corporate India with the same brush. "It also depends on the profession you choose," she says.
"Why do we assume only corporate workers stretch themselves? My mom was a teacher—she brought work home every day. Even summer vacations were spent correcting board exam sheets. What about her work-life balance? She loved her job; it was a calling."
The point, she says, is this: you have to choose your tribe.
"In any profession, there are trade-offs. If your personal preferences align with a traditional corporate setup, there's nothing wrong with choosing it. The key is knowing your values—and finding a space that honours them."
That's not to say the system is always fair. But agency lies in recognising where your influence ends and where your choices begin. "You can't always change your industry's leaders. But you can choose your industry. You can choose the kind of organisation you want to work with."
In Renuu's experience, organisations that thrive embrace, not suppress, diverse ways of working and thinking. "If you notice sycophancy in a system, it's usually driven by a single individual at the top with a clan culture. But when a culture allows for dissenting perspectives, presented maturely and respectfully, it lifts everyone. That's when leadership becomes collective. That's when organisations rise together."
It's a perspective that flows through Renuu's coaching philosophy, rooted in the belief that a human being is unique, quirky, and complex behind every career decision, performance metric, or role.
Her belief in "leadership with no title" underlines everything she says and does. "Your designation or certificate? It's just a symbol. It might exist today, but it might not be tomorrow. True leadership isn't defined by a role but by your ability to empower others."
This belief isn't just rhetoric—it's praxis.
Renuu coaches global humanitarian staff across the UN and USAID ecosystem. She also works with university students through XLRI Delhi's Professional Mentorship Program. She's a Fellow at the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and she continues to run her practice as a leadership coach and HR consultant. Her clients are diverse, global, functional, and industry-agnostic.
Renuu's core remains steadfast: coaching that recognises and works with what makes us human. There lies the difference.
Renuu's advice for new leaders
1. Hire smart—and don't be intimidated
Don't be threatened by people who're more intelligent than you. In fact, surround yourself with them. Work gets done faster—and it's a lot more fun.
2. Trust your team
If you've hired someone, trust that decision. Don't micromanage. Let people do what they were brought in to do.
3. Invest in your own growth
Keep learning. Take responsibility for your personal and professional development. If you can spend time on holidays and evenings out, you can spend time and money upskilling yourself. The future is already here.