Rahula Withanage

Rahula Withanage is a Sri Lankan–heritage financier with more than 20 years of experience leading a commercial multi-family office. Early in his career he was a senior advisor at Deloitte & Touche and Andersen Consulting, working with intergovernmental and multilateral institutions on treasury, asset management, corporatization, and the efficiency and reform of state-owned enterprises. He also spent roughly a decade based in Brunei, holding roles with Brunei Telecom and Royal Brunei Airlines (including director and head of management audit), before building the family's investment platforms.

In 2006 the Withanage family co-founded the BMB Group alongside Pengiran Anak Abdul 'Ali Yil-Kabier (Prince Abdul Ali) of the Bruneian royal family. BMB became one of the first commercial multi-family offices to unify some of the largest ruling-family and sovereign investors across the Middle East and Asia, deploying (with affiliates) over $12 billion globally across private equity, real estate, natural resources, wealth management, hospitality, and philanthropy. Rahula Withanage became CEO of BMB as of June 2009, succeeding the firm's founder, and the group later refocused as a specialist advisor and investor for Forbes 500 families. BMB's notable moves included acquiring a 50% stake in emerging-markets private-equity manager EMP Global (2008), buying part of Alliance Capital Group (2010), and acquiring Deutsche Bank's Islamic finance subsidiary.

The family also stood behind Scepter Partners, a Bermuda-based principal investment firm and capital syndicate of sovereign investors (founded ~2014), which made high-profile — ultimately unsuccessful — bids for Australia's Santos Limited (a $5.1B offer in 2015 and a later $14.4B bid with Harbour Energy). Rahula Withanage has been associated with the CEO role at Scepter Partners as of 2023. Today he serves as Founder and Chairman of the Withanage Group / Withanage Family Office and chairs the Withanage Foundation. His son, Rayo Withanage — the well-known original founder/chairman of BMB and Scepter — stepped away from private equity toward venture philanthropy (Philantech / the Withanage Foundation), so recent press about the "Withanage family" investments is directed by Rahula as head of the family office.

• Invests as a family-office principal, unifying sovereign and ruling-family capital from the Middle East and Asia rather than writing small individual angel checks.
• Current thesis centers on "impact media and technology" businesses — companies that disrupt traditional competitors while delivering measurable social and environmental benefit, aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Core sectors are FinTech, tokenization of real-world assets (especially cultural and environmental assets), AI, and gamification — aiming to "develop the un-monetised potential of cultural and real-world passive assets."
• Deploys at meaningful scale: a $40M FinTech/tokenization commitment (2024), a $20M entertainment-gamification-for-philanthropy platform (2024), and a $500M vehicle into AI, gamification, and tokenization slated for announcement in 2025.
• Historically diversified across private equity, infrastructure, natural resources, real estate, Islamic finance, and hospitality, reflecting the BMB/Scepter heritage.