A Civilisational Partnership, A Capital Decade: My Notes from Colombo

In May 2026, I travelled to Colombo for the ZEE Media & WION Global Innovation & Leadership Summit. I went expecting a conference. I came back convinced that India and Sri Lanka are standing at the edge of a different kind of decade — and that, at Indus Strategy, our work for the next ten years is going to look quite different from the last ten.

There are conferences you attend, and there are rooms you remember. Cinnamon Grand Colombo, on the morning of 2 May 2026, was the latter for me.

I had arrived the night before with my colleague and Senior Director at Indus Strategy, Hemant Chaturvedi. Colombo at night has a particular quality — the sea air, the slower traffic, the warmth of a city that has been through a great deal in recent years and still greets you with grace. By the time we walked into the Summit hall the next morning, the room was already filling up with delegates from both sides of the Palk Strait — bankers, ministers, industrialists, journalists, founders.

The ZEE Media & WION Global Innovation & Leadership Summit, Sri Lanka Edition, was not a vanity event. It was, in the most literal sense, a working summit. The agenda alone made that clear: the Leader of the Opposition Hon. Sajith Premadasa, Hon. Harsha de Silva MP, Krishan Balendra of the John Keells Group, H.E. Santosh Jha (India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka), and a long bench of industry leaders from both countries. People had not flown in to be seen. They had flown in to think out loud.

Listening Before Speaking

Before I took the stage at 11:05 AM, I spent the morning listening — and that turned out to be the most important hour of my visit.

What struck me was how candid the Sri Lankan voices were. There was no performance of optimism, no rehearsed talking points. Speakers acknowledged the last few years honestly, and then turned, almost in the same breath, to what comes next. Sri Lanka, by all accounts I heard that day, is no longer in the business of explaining its past. It is in the business of building its next decade.

That tonal shift matters. For someone like me — who spends his working life moving capital across borders — the difference between a market that is defensive and a market that is forward-leaning is the difference between a deal you can close and one you cannot.

What I Said From the Podium

When my turn came, I did not want to give a deck.

I wanted to put on the table, plainly, what Indus Strategy actually does, and why I think India and Sri Lanka are about to enter a chapter that needs people who do exactly that.

I introduced Indus Strategy the way I always do: a global financial house, born out of India and headquartered in Mumbai, present across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Singapore — and yes, Sri Lanka. We work across three verticals — investment banking and advisory (M&A, private equity, joint ventures, India inbound and outbound), asset management (with funds based out of Mauritius, the Cayman Islands, DIFC and GIFT IFSC), and wealth management (for sovereign-linked institutions, family offices and ultra-HNIs). Sixty per cent of our exposure is towards Indian markets; the balance is split between the United States and the rest of the world.

I shared that not as a credentials slide, but because the rest of what I wanted to say only made sense if the room understood the lens I was looking through.

And then I made the case I had come to make.

India and Sri Lanka are not just neighbouring partners. We are civilisational partners. Our relationship is rooted in centuries of shared culture, spirituality and trust — and today, that legacy is transforming into a powerful economic partnership driven by trade, investment, innovation and trust.

I said that India’s growth story has matured into something serious — robust digital infrastructure, a maturing hard-infrastructure base, a manufacturing sector finding its feet, a deep start-up culture, and a capital market that can now genuinely absorb global allocations. Sri Lanka, with its strategic location, brings the other half of the equation: real tourism strength, an emerging innovation ecosystem, and a logistics and fintech corridor that is being built in real time.

The point I wanted the room to leave with was simple. Sri Lanka is uniquely positioned to be a gateway to the Indian Ocean economy. What we are watching is not, in my view, a bilateral story any more. It is the early formation of a regional growth corridor.

I closed with the line I had carried with me on the flight in:

It is time to change intent into investment, and dialogue into deployment.

The Felicitation

Shortly after my address, I was honoured to be felicitated as Impact Leader in Business & Investment Strategy at the Summit. I will not pretend the moment did not mean something. Recognition is a strange thing — it points backward, at work already done, but the value of it is forward. It tells you that the road you have been quietly walking is one that others can now see.

For me, the recognition belongs to the entire Indus Strategy team in Mumbai, to the partners and clients who have trusted us across cycles, and to my family — many of whom are also my colleagues — who have built this house brick by brick.

The Conversations That Mattered

The truth is, the most useful part of a summit like this happens between sessions — at the side of the stage, in the corridors, at the tea breaks.

I had the privilege of meaningful conversations with Hon. Hanif Yusoof, Governor of the Western Province and Special Envoy of the President for Foreign Investments. His clarity on what Sri Lanka is open to — and what shape inbound capital should take — was exactly the kind of signal global investors look for. We spoke about the kinds of capital flows that are durable, and the kinds that are not. He was direct. I appreciated it.

I also had the privilege of speaking with Hon. (Prof.) Ruwan Chaminda Ranasinghe, Deputy Minister of Tourism, on what tourism integration with India could look like beyond the obvious — beyond just inbound footfall, into investment, infrastructure and joint ventures.

And I had a substantive exchange with Hon. Chathuranga Abeysinghe, MP and Minister for Industries & Economic Development, on what enterprise partnership between India and Sri Lanka could mean at the level of small and mid-cap companies — not just the marquee names.

Across each of those conversations, the same pattern showed up: the willingness to do the unglamorous work. To talk specifics. To talk timelines.

What I Took Away

I have come back to Mumbai with a sharper view than I left with.

The next decade for South Asian capital is not going to be defined by commentary. It is going to be defined by capital flows — by which advisors build the bridges, by which institutions write the cheques, by which entrepreneurs are bold enough to operate across borders that have, until recently, been thought of as separate markets rather than complementary ones.

At Indus Strategy, this is the work I want us to be at the centre of. We already advise corporates across infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, food and agri, BFSI and FMCG, and our funds already deploy globally. Sri Lanka — and the broader Indian Ocean opportunity — is now firmly inside that mandate, not adjacent to it.

If the trip to Colombo taught me anything, it is that the alignment is unusually rare. Policy intent, capital readiness, and entrepreneurial ambition are converging at the same time. That does not happen often. When it does, the firms that move early are the ones that get to set the shape of the decade.

I am grateful to Zee Media Corporation and WION for the recognition, to the organisers and the Sri Lankan hosts for a summit that took itself seriously, and to every delegate who made the time to talk substance instead of small talk.

The opportunity is real. The execution window is now.

— Manish Chaturvedi
Founder & Managing Director, Indus Strategy