Entrepreneurship isn’t for wimps or the indolent. Even during the most optimistic of economic climates, like Sri Lanka is now generally thought to be experiencing, entrepreneurs face remarkable challenges because to succeed they have to upstage the establishment. In a country where the citizenry doesn’t believe their fate lies in their own hands, risk taking isn’t second nature. The attitude towards entrepreneurs, often perceived as dishonest and exploitative, also stems from that worldview. These cultural problems are reinforced by grander structural issues.
Sri Lankan entrepreneurs also have to overcome the challenge of an apathetic bureaucracy, an onerous tax system, inconsistent policy and a wild-west type application of laws & regulations, so time best spent building a business is diverted to firefighting. The familiarity of this dysfunctional system to former bureaucrats and private sector executives would perhaps make them wise enough to abandon any idea of striking out on their own.
However former super bureaucrat and private sector chief executive Thilan Wijesinghe is diving right in to the world of startups despite his first hand knowledge about the many impediments to the entrepreneurial ecology here. He wants to join the ranks of a new generation of entrepreneurs beginning to shake off decades of idleness to compete in international markets and against global brands—and win.
It’s an unlikely path for Wijesinghe, best known for his half a decade leading the island’s investment promotion agency – the BOI (Board of Investment). In an era when leveraged acquisitions are the rage pitting new economy empire builders against the fast fading managerial capitalism of the old guard, Wijesinghe is going against the grain. Over the last decade, personalities were built and riches accumulated in the stock market by individuals who took control of ailing, old-economy firms, with borrowed money. “What I am good at is organic wealth creation so that pretty much defines my philosophy as an entrepreneur and investor,” Wijesinghe explains.
Thilan Wijesinghe’s resume is impressive for its breadth of experience and achievement. At 35 he was appointed BOI Chairman, a position that then wielded significant influence over government policy. In the private sector he had been part of a team that founded investment bank Asia Capital, and subsequent to his BOI stint was chief executive of Overseas Realty, Forbes & Walker Group and Asian Hotels. Wijesinghe was vice captain of the Sri Lanka Under 19 cricket team and captained the Sri Lanka A team and in addition he is also a folk musician, a passion for which he intends to devote more time in the future.
Wijesinghe was a young prodigy but admits the BOI overwhelmed him at first. “The sheer volume of letters and files, to incessant requests for appointments and sitting on numerous talk-shops that the public service refers to as ‘committees’ and ‘task forces,” he says was tremendously challenging and something he overcame by starting work at dawn.
His late blooming as an entrepreneur; only decisively striking out a couple of years ago, isn’t a concern. He says in executive office he has always been semi-entrepreneurial, by purchasing equity in listed firms he managed and having stock options built in to contracts. “My biggest satisfaction would be to start a company and take it public in three or five years. Or if I were to takeover a public company; to quadruple shareholder wealth through organic growth.”
Some founding Asia Capital shareholders still partner Wijesinghe in entrepreneurial ventures. Despite his early start in the capital markets he shuns the stock market trading formula that earned fortunes for some investors.
“You can play the market and create wealth and then go buy a bunch of companies and create a holding company sort of structure,” he says in reference to the strategy of investors like Dilith Jayaweera. Wijesinghe now identifies himself as an outsider to the corporate world. He also gives the impression he is utterly content with the balance of career and life.
Thilan Wijesinghe’s measure of success is less about money and titles, and more by what is sweepingly referred to as ‘work-life balance’. Two years ago Wijesinghe struck out on his own, setting up TWCorp, an investment bank type service for real estate. But his infatuation with entrepreneurialism started almost a decade ago when he took a minority stake in an MJF Group controlled leisure company. Widely acclaimed Ceylon Tea Trails – four plantation bungalows which are operated as an integrated resort – was conceived and today claims to have Sri Lanka’s highest revenue per available room.
He also invested in e-commerce site anything.lk-which dialog valued at over Rs700 million with a new equity investment, a gem cutting & polishing firm that is now a preferred supplier to Cartier and Chanel, a travel planning firm and has minority stakes at MJF and Forbes & Walker leisure ventures. Wijesinghe doesn’t run these businesses, “I am what I call, an active member imparting whatever knowledge that I have,” he explains.
However the BOI Chairmanship can be a tough act to follow, for the influence on public policy it wielded and placing Wijesinghe in an inner circle of advisors and confidants to the former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Wijesinghe stuck with the job to within months of the Kumaratunga government’s collapse under pressure of an economic recession and a revolt within her own party. Wijesinghe quit under pressure due to a corruption investigation by the bribery commission, of which charges he was cleared much later. By the time charges were dropped, it had damaged his reputation deeply and forced him out of the BOI.
Wijesinghe said then that “it was a travesty that persons who held important positions in this country, in the guise of investigating a complaint, used their authority to unfairly victimise me.” It was also the end of a phenomenal run at the vanguard of power and influence.
In the decade since quitting the BOI Wijesinghe had three jobs, Chief Executive at Asian Hotels-a real estate firm which owns the Cinnamon Grand and the buildings surrounding it, Forbes & Walker Group-a unit of MJF, and briefly Overseas Realty-a listed real estate firm that owns Colombo’s World Trade Center and is building Havelock City, a luxury apartment complex.
In the decade following his BOI exit, the economy struggled to stay above the waterline, bar a couple of years during a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers. While business growth was slow during this decade it was particularly catastrophic for real estate sector and leisure firms, where Wijesinghe was aligned to.
“Asia Capital and BOI collectively defined and laid the foundation for who I am today as an entrepreneur, a business leader, as an individual and a human being,” he says during a candid interview. “It gave me insights into the art of the possibilities in this country.” 
Asia Capital – started on a $25,000 investment – was worth $55 million at its peak. However within months of becoming a bureaucrat Wijesinghe was disillusioned enough about the direction of economic policy to sell his 2.3 million shares. One evening upon returning from work he told his wife, “sell everything, just get out of the stock market,” he recalls. With the benefit of hindsight he thinks Asia Capital was ahead of its time, arriving on the investment banking scene not long after foreign investment was allowed in to stocks. “Opportunities for that sort of dynamic, vibrant, cutting edge investment banking would not have existed even if I returned after three years,” he says of the initial plan to rerun to Asia Capital after three years at the BOI.
“There were some extremely sub optimum decisions and policies that were under discussion,” he explains of the government policies under discussion that prompted him to sell his Asia Capital shareholding. “That particular day I told my wife to sell everything – was one on which the brightest of minds within the cabinet of Chandrika Kumaratunga spoke with, what I consider to be misplaced enthusiasm, on the benefits of what was then called the workers charter.”
A quibbler may have given up in the face of irredeemably incompetent economic policy making. “The environment which I did not have the power to change was the reason why I would still consider I accomplished maybe a quarter to a third of potential,” he muses.
His own modest assessment of achievements has tempered expectations of what he thinks is possible. “It has given me greater understanding why we are where we are today – in what I consider to be a country of highly capable and intelligent people but yet we remain well short of reaching our potential.”
The egalitarianism of the Chandrika Kumaratunga government might have made economic reforms impossible if not for the ingenuity and resourcefulness of some in the bureaucracy. Among the regime’s shining achievements are the telecom sector reforms which made telephones ubiquitous and affordable, and efficiency gains achieved at the Colombo Port by granting a concession to a private sector managed container terminal. Before these reforms it was inordinately difficult to obtain any telephone and the Colombo port’s labour unions often held the economy to ransom over their selfish demands.
Wijesinghe confides the government then was convinced of the need for private sector competition in ports to neutralise port trade unions. Today most of the Port Authority’s profits come from the concession of the private sector owned SAGT.
The experience as a bureaucrat has made Wijesinghe wise to the importance of micro or industry policy because of its business impact. “It’s a given, that you have to have sound macroeconomic principles. However the real art of driving a country’s economy is at the micro level. I can identify an umpteen number of industries where we could be doing much better, if there is greater understanding, dialogue and public private partnerships at the micro level.”
Government policy is generally small business friendly but doesn’t focus on fostering high growth companies, the types that will eventually create thousands of high quality jobs and generate tax revenue. Value creation is the bulwark of a market economy and often it’s hard to beat the ingenuity and sheer pace of entrepreneurs at doing that.
However he says one of the key challenges is raising high quality long term private equity and angel investment. Wijesinghe specializes in bringing together exceptional entrepreneurs, capable management and consultants with angel investors. He has used this formula in start-ups that he has helped promote so far.
“We can be a lot more proactive at the micro level, which is not happening cohesively. That’s why we are, what I call, a country with pockets of excellence within a sea of mediocrity. In fact my business philosophy is also to create pockets of excellence in business, because we don’t have, what I call holistic excellence, as a nation.”
Sri Lanka’s economic policy making – in the hands of an intellectual underclass – is replete with inconsistency, red tape and a dismal focus on concentrating power. “We haven’t reached an economic equilibrium that could propel us on a growth momentum that, even if you wanted to hold back could not be stopped,” Wijesinghe contends. “The economy grows when it has a wind behind its sail and I don’t think the wind is blowing hard enough.” The unconcern for the dull matters that make a business tick is manifest in the lack of high quality FDI and investment, he points out. Wijesinghe is circumspect and evaluates the formula for success in a particular business that works for him. “I keep seeking that formula as opposed to large salary packages or roads to quick wealth,” he says during an interview at his small windowless office on the top floor of the Forbes and Walker building. The contrast of his office couldn’t be sharper from the apartment sized BOI Chairman’s office offering vistas of downtown Colombo at the World Trade Center when Wijesinghe occupied it.
