Sumana Rajarethnam

Director, South-east Asia

Sumana Rajarethnam is the South-east Asia director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network based in Singapore. Sumana works closely with network members to help inform their business strategies through political, economic and operational insight and to connect them with their senior leadership peers.

Sumana is a senior policy professional with 17 years of business advisory experience, nine of those as an analyst, principal and director with the EIU from 2011-2020. He has most recently been working in the Chinese technology sector, including stints at Kuaishou Technology and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Before joining The Economist Group, Sumana worked as a journalist and in public relations with a focus on government and institutional clients. He served as executive director of the Asian Dialogue Society, working to develop an alternative ASEAN Charter with leading policymakers, and organised the “Building a Better Asia” series, a programme for young leaders across Asia undertaken with Peking University and the Nippon Foundation.

Sumana holds a BA in political science from UCLA and a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan.

Expertise Expertise

Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand

Specialist subjects Specialist subjects

Cities, Development, Gender, Public policy

Languages Languages

English, Malay

Location Location

Singapore