For Dinesh Verma, managing risk begins long before a problem becomes visible. It is a principle that has guided his work as a physiotherapist, his decision-making as an entrepreneur and, increasingly, his approach to managing his wealth.
Originally from India, Verma moved to Singapore in 1989 to work as a clinical physiotherapist, but eventually transitioned his career beyond clinical practice after earning a master of business administration (MBA) degree, adding a broader commercial lens onto his work in the healthcare sector.
Today, Verma runs healthcare and physical rehabilitation businesses in Singapore, which have served as a launch pad to expand into other markets in the region, including Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Through V2U Health, he provides and distributes specialist equipment, technology and solutions for physiotherapy. He is also the founder and director of the Physio Asia Therapy Centre, which he established with his wife, Monika, who is a physiotherapist as well. More recently, he joined the board of directors for the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The pursuit of his professional and wealth goals has not been limited by borders, whether they are geographic or drawn between the clinical and business sides of his field.
This mindset is particularly apparent in the way that Verma applies clinical thinking to his business operations. Physiotherapists, he explains, play an important role in preventive healthcare, spotting potential risks in patients that could lead to future problems and conducting thorough assessments of existing pain issues so they can be resolved before they worsen.
“As a physiotherapist, I am trained to look deeper into a problem,” he says. “If somebody comes in with knee pain, we can pinpoint the [location] of pain, but what is the source? It could be in the hip or ankle. Being a physio makes us learn more deeply about the root cause of a problem, and we tend to apply that [approach] in business.”
When it comes to building his wealth, Verma looks for a similarly disciplined approach. For him, a relationship manager fulfils multiple roles, from financial adviser to client account manager and wealth solutions expert. While he has worked with different advisers in the past, many of those relationships were short-lived.
“You have one adviser one day, but by next year they are gone,” he says. “By the time you’ve been able to build a rapport, that relationship is lost. I look for those who clearly understand me and have a similar mindset in terms of risk and prevention. I am really glad I now have that with Standard Chartered.”
Since becoming a client of Standard Chartered, Verma says he has focused more on investing to grow an alternative source of income that can help sustain a future for himself and his family. “I needed proper investment guidance from somebody who understands that I am interested in getting a decent return, but also that I’m not extremely ambitious [about the returns].”
He says his relationship manager at Standard Chartered understands him, his needs, his mindset and his careful approach to risk. “He has years of experience and has done his due diligence,” Verma adds.
Outside of work, Verma has developed a growing interest in golf. As he learns the sport, he has applied his clinical mindset to understand how physical fitness and body movement can influence a player’s swing and overall performance.
“To play golf, you need a certain level of fitness and a lot of focus. You need to understand your limitations and how to overcome them,” he says.
Looking ahead, Verma hopes to build a rehabilitation or performance enhancement centre in India, with the aim of giving back to his homeland and roots.
That ambition reflects a broader definition of success, he says. “You start your life with a lot of aspirations, but as you mature, you enjoy inspiring others. To me, success is about how many people I’m able to inspire and guide to do better. Wealth is something that you build, but satisfaction comes from what you say. The more people I’m able to inspire, the better I feel.”
Check out the video to hear more about how Dinesh Verma uses golf and physiotherapy to advance his entrepreneurial mindset. To learn about Standard Chartered’s tailored solutions for clients’ various banking priorities, click here.
