Northern Investment Summit: A foundation for further continuum

TMC Sri Lanka’s Kaushal Rajapaksa is leading the initiative behind the Northern Investment Summit

Shanthi Bhagirathan

By Surya Vishwa 

The two day Northern Investment Summit (NIS) 2026 will commence  in 21 January in Jaffna prioritising capacity building and youth leadership for a region which saw its potential thwarted for over three decades but which is now proceeding to attract much local and international interest. 

The event is initiated by the Board of Management of The Management Club (TMC) of Sri Lanka headed by Kaushal Rajapaksa. 

The event is moulded and assisted by key community activists from diverse sectors in the North and spearheaded by well-known Sri Lankan professionals such as Shanthi Bhagirathan, Raj Sivanathan, Anu Rakavan, and Vivekananth Niranjan. 

V. Niranjan, the former head of the Jaffna Management Club acts as a connector of networks for the investment summit which gets its dynamism from Anu Rakavan, the current chairman of the Jaffna Chapter of TMC. The Project Chairman for the Northern Investment Summit 2026 (NIS26) is Kaushal Rajapaksa, the Immediate Past President of The Management Club (TMC) based in Colombo who spearheaded the event, with TMC President Roger Talayarathne also involved in driving its success in collaboration with key professionals and resource persons from Jaffna. 

The Management Club (TMC) was established in February 2002, under the patronage of the then British High Commissioner Linda Duffield, who had served as Patron of the Chartered Management Institute UK, Sri Lanka Branch.

The Northern Investment Summit is expected to be a pivotal event in Sri Lanka’s post-conflict economic trajectory marking a turning point in how investment securing is projected and sustained.  

“We hope that this will be an event which is significant not just for Jaffna or for the North of Sri Lanka but for the bringing together of investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, development partners, and Sri Lankan expatriates as an entirety,” explained  Shanthi  Bhagirathan, a veteran broadcaster and marketing strategist who is currently the Group Director of The Capital Maharaja Organisation Ltd. Shanthi is one of the main driving forces behind the scenes who shuns from the limelight for what she has done the past months for the success of the summit but whose strategy has shaped the course of its intent.

It is she who had suggested that a request be made to the Jaffna Cultural Centre also known as the Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centre which is managed by the Municipal Council to provide the premises free of charge for the event. 

Raj, an Australia based expatriate whose hometown is the North and an active supporter of the 2026 Northern Investor Summit points out that for him one of the primary goals for the development of Jaffna is for the Palali airport to be transformed into an international airport which can direct international tourism which is currently routed from India. 

“This has been one of my crusades for some time – to look at how the airport in Jaffna could be a major asset for Sri Lanka as a whole in directing air traffic based foreign revenue to this nation. I have been trying to get interest of many relevant stakeholders for pitching the North of Sri Lanka as an international access point. Primarily what is needed is for policy makers who conceptualise the progress of Sri Lanka to set in motion the first steps that will lead to the much needed metamorphosis of one of the key assets of Jaffna – its airport,” he states.   

Asked if this summit will look at attracting investors for the above mentioned purpose he answers that he expects it to be a starting point. 

Anu Rakavan, the summit deputy-chair emphasises that the Northern Investment Summit 2026 aims to carve out a structured investment facilitation blueprint that will aid the systematic local and global interest in sustainable development of Sri Lanka. A key highlight is that the University of Jaffna and the University of Vavuniya will be in charge of facilitating the technical sessions.

The organisers note that this is the first time such an integrated investor focused summit has been held in post conflict territory encompassing all sectors – where youth capacity building, innovation in entrepreneurship and the nexus between modern technology and ancient knowledge and heritage is juxtaposed designed not merely to attract interest, but to convert intent into action.

How does the summit hope to get investors to pledge interest and is this meant only to attract diaspora communities living abroad? Those involved point out that the summit hopes to get anyone, even Sri Lankans from the South who are interested in the holistic wellbeing of the country to invest in as many areas of business interest as possible. This includes environment protection through the route of business innovation and development, and thus assisting peace-building between ethnic divides. Tourism will be a key sector in focus at the event. 

Both Colombo and North based sources connected to the organising of the event stress that the summit provides a unique opportunity for local and international investors to interact and engage with a wide segment of stakeholders. These include central and provincial Government leadership, private sector representatives, local communities, and industry stakeholders. They are expected to collectively prioritise the development of a long term vision for equity based progress of humans and planet.

Entrepreneurs, including MSMEs, startups and university students will gain exposure to real investment opportunities, policy insights, financing pathways and mentorship, notes Raj who plans to be present at the summit, travelling in from Australia where he is based. 

The organisers have worked for the past months with the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry who has in turn briefed diplomats across the world through the Sri Lankan missions abroad on establishing an online investor platform for engagement during the event. 

Following are excerpts of an interview with Shanthi Bhagirathan who plays a key role in volunteering her time for the strategic marketing/ socio-economic integration and planning of the summit.

Q: Is your role informal as such in your involvement with the 2026 Investment Summit?

A: Well, I am from the North of Sri Lanka and I have been part of the discussions with the organisers and the overall networks involved in putting this event together. Informal or formal I do what I think should be done.

Q: Are you a Sri Lankan citizen or a British passport holder?

A. I lived in UK for much of my professional life. However I now am a Sri Lankan passport holder.

Q: It is learnt that it was you who requested the Jaffna Cultural Centre Management to provide the premises free of charge for holding the summit there. Is this correct?

A: Yes. I was going in for discussions with the authorities who manage the cultural centre, with Anu Rakavan and others in the organising team when I suggested that we put in this request. Our team thought that it may be too much to ask but I did anyway and well, we now have the premises offered to us free of charge.

Q: Given the significance of the event for the North and the country at large it seems that it should be the duty of State represented buildings of this nature to be given free for national development related initiatives. 

A: Yes and we are happy that this is done this time around. 

Q:Youth, especially between ages of say, 18 to 24 are a usually forgotten segment when it comes to events of this nature involving investment. How do you plan to project the skills, aspirations and entrepreneurship ideas of the Northern youth to the world?

A: This is a personal interest of mine to promote capacity building and financial support securing for the next generation who hold within them new ideas, thoughts and ventures. We have identified a range of sectors and the attendance of 25 persons per sector, keeping in mind youth participation. For example from the occupations of Agriculture and Fishing we will have the youth representatives – the children of the farmers and fishermen who will speak of how they envisage the sector to be if they are to be part of it. Most children of fishermen or farmers do not want to continue in these occupations as their parents have done. I speak to many youth on their dreams and visions and they have new ideas of how they feel old things should be redone. The focus here is also to keep the next generations within Sri Lanka while helping them to rise to their optimum performance. 

These youth will for the first time be able to connect meaningfully with decision makers and networks which can influence their access to a financial and technical scale up.  

Q:Are you focusing on a gender balance – where females are as equally represented as males?

A: Answer is a definite yes.

Q: One of the key questions that many would ask is how impactful this investor summit would be in terms of actually securing funding for development projects. How would you answer?

A: The Summit is designed as an enabling event. One that will expose talent of the North, that will look at real needs, discuss micro and macro realities and project the Northern Province as a willing,  ready and capable of supporting serious investment.

Q: Who are some of the local partners for the event?

A: There are many. Cargills and HNB are two keysupporters alongside those such as IDL & East India Holdings, and the Sea Leisure Yachting Group.

Q. What will be different in this summit from a standard investor conference?

A: I would say the historic First One Stop Investor Secretariat at the Governor’s Office. This will be a dedicated Secretariat at the Governor’s Office, created for those who want investment and those who want to invest.  This Secretariat will function as a coordination unit for relevant stakeholders providing clear information, guidance and facilitation of future projects in the Northern region. 

Q:Sri Lanka is a country that still needs much work in terms of national unity. Is there are any step taken to encourage Southern Sinhalese investors to attend this event?

A: I can tell you that the organisers have looked into this. It is also my personal wish that more interaction happens between ethnicities through the route of investment so that money making ventures can also be a chance for cultural understanding and post conflict healing.

Q: What are the countries actively taking part in this event?

A. There is Indian representation alongside many other nations being involved in diverse ways. We have written to diplomatic representatives of around 70 countries and we hope to follow up in a steady manner in engaging with them during as well as after the event. 

Conclusion 

What the 2026 Investor Summit hopes to achieve is to project the once war devastated North of Sri Lanka to the world while aligning authentic macro and micro socio economic perspectives, showcase human and natural resources as well as policy needs. 

How meaningful the event will be in real life terms, how it will change the current near impossibility for young people anywhere in Sri Lanka – not just the North to get support for new ventures, is to be seen. We will hope to continue our ground based media research weeks and months from this summit to further understand and lay the foundation for consistent investor interest in the human capacity of Sri Lankans.