Rushi Bhalani ’19

Senior Strategist, Indeed
BA 2019, Rice University

ARA Board Term ends: 2026

Get to Know Rushi

Executive Bio

Rushi Bhalani is a Senior Strategist at Indeed, not only helping people get jobs but also helping commercialize the products that enable this and bringing them to market. He also has previous experience in a real estate investing startup and as a strategy consultant for Accenture Strategy.

Bhalani graduated from Rice University in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and a Certificate in Engineering Leadership. He has served on the Rice Engineering Alumni (REA) Board of Directors since 2020, as a Baker College Community Associate, an ARA Young Alumni Ambassador, an admissions interviewer for Rice Alumni Volunteers for Admissions (RAVA) and a volunteer for the Rice Annual Fund (RAF). While at Rice, Bhalani served in a variety of leadership roles in the Student Association and at Baker College.

Having grown up in the sunny suburbs of Los Angeles, Bhalani enjoys warm weather (so much so that he does not mind the notoriously humid Houston summers) and going to the beach. He takes particular joy in traveling to new places, savoring the top-notch Houston food scene, learning more about personal finance, winning (or trying to, at least) at Settlers of Catan, rooting on the Lakers and following key trends in fields ranging from higher education to social psychology.

What part of serving on the ARA Board are you most excited about?

I am excited about serving on the ARA Board and continuing to make Rice a home that all alumni can always lean on. I am especially interested in ensuring that alumni can continue to remain engaged with the university in ways that support them both professionally and personally, find and connect with each other, and tap into the "next phase" of an identically supportive and caring community that allowed them as students to form lifelong friendships and get started on realizing their dreams and aspirations. I hope to especially focus on underrepresented and underserved alumni segments, including young alumni and alumni living outside of Houston, and I look forward to working with the ARA to unlock the full potential of our alumni through the opportunities Rice can continue providing them.

What is your favorite “Only at Rice” memory or story?

One of my favorite memories as a student is undoubtedly having had the privilege of serving as an O-Week Coordinator for Baker College. One of the greatest sources of joy and meaning for me lay then (and even now in other forms) in helping introduce the next generation of Bakerites and Owls to Rice, tapping into an ethos of servant leadership that aimed to shape the cultures and communities around me into ones that could be diverse and inclusive of all and that emphasized the fundamental value of truly caring for others.

This one experience above all others also personally marked the transformative impact Rice had on me in growing from a shy, timid student into one who surprisingly discovered a great power and also an immense responsibility for having a positive impact on others around him.

Experiences like these also form the roots of my closest, lifelong friendships (including some with faculty and administration) and to me mark “the Rice experience” and the sense of home and community that I believe many alumni long to find once more outside the hedges and that I hope to help connect them back to.

If you could give one piece of advice to Rice students, what would it be?

In my story above, the theme for that particular O-Week at Baker College was "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" I think a lot of students might sometimes feel lost as to who they are and what their place in the world might be, but I'd like them to know that they are not alone and that they can't even comprehend yet the places they'll go (in all senses of the word). My advice is to just believe in the process even when you may not completely believe in yourself — fight the good fight, choose to go to the moon, make the world a better place and take care of the people around you.