Rose Featured
in the St. Louis
Post Dispatch

For Immediate Release

Contact: pr@roseint.com

Software company leader is a dynamic achiever

Excerpt of Article from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch - May 17th,1999

By Repps Hudson

When Sue Bhatia was a young woman in New Delhi, she had no inkling that someday she would own one of St. Louis' most dynamic companies. A little more than a decade after she earned her architecture degree in her native India, Himanshu "Sue" Bhatia, 36, heads Rose International, a software development and computer consulting firm with sales of $11.6 million last year.

The Chesterfield company has grown with dizzying speed by holding onto its core of clients while opening offices across the country and in New Delhi. As recently as 1995, the 6-year-old company had sales of $399,000 and 11 employees. Today Rose International has about 200 employees and hopes to hit $20 million in sales this year.

Of the minority- and women-owned companies researched by the Post-Dispatch for this report, Rose International is the only one owned by a woman who is also a minority, an Asian. The list is not comprehensive because some owners of privately held companies would not discuss their revenues for 1998. She and her husband, Gulab Bhatia, founded Rose with their own money and a Small Business Administration loan. (The word "Rose" began as an acronym for "reliable and open systems engineering.") The Bhatias moved to the United States in 1987. Sue Bhatia worked in information systems at McDonnell Douglas Corp. for four years and at Edward Jones for two years, while Gulab Bhatia also held information-systems jobs.

Sue Bhatia emphasized that she makes the decisions and works about 60 hours a week to keep her company growing. The company's clients include the state of Missouri, Scott Air Force Base, Anheuser-Busch, Southwestern Bell, Monsanto and Maritz. Rose has offices in Jefferson City, Kansas City, Chicago and Irvine, Calif. "We have been successful in getting repeat business," Sue Bhatia said. "We've been able to rise in the vendor community." Rose is one of two minority-owned firms in the St. Louis area that passed a rigorous qualification process called Corporate Plus. It was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch. The designation allows Rose to bid on services for Fortune 500 companies as a minority-owned business. There are only 36 such companies in the United States, said Eddie Davis, president of the St. Louis Minority Business Council.

For more information on Rose International, visit the company's website at www.roseint.com or email pr@roseint.com.