Manu Bhaskaran Keynote Speaker

Manu Bhaskaran is a Partner of the Centennial Group, a strategic advisory firm headquartered in Washington DC. As Founding CEO of its Singapore subsidiary, Centennial Asia Advisors, he co-ordinates the Asian business of the Group which provides independent economic research on Asian political and macro-economic trends for investment institutions, government agencies, multilateral institutions and companies with interests in Asia, leveraging off close to 40 years of studying Asia.

Manu Bhaskaran is also Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore where his main interests are in analyzing macro-economic policy frameworks in Singapore.

Prior to Centennial, Manu Bhaskaran held senior positions at Societe Generale’s Asian investment banking division where he supervised Asian economic and investment strategy analysis and was a member of the Executive Committee, in charge of Asian equity research. In 12 years with the firm, Manu Bhaskaran helped to establish its business presence in Southeast Asia and in South Asia while also helping to develop the firm’s highly-rated equity and economic research. Prior to that, Manu Bhaskaran worked for the Singapore government, supervising a team that prepared strategic political and economic assessments of Asia for senior Singapore government officials.

Manu Bhaskaran holds a range of other positions. In terms of public service, he served as Chairman of a high-level government committee reviewing the regulation of moneylenders in Singapore in 2014-2015. He is also Member of the Competition Appeals Board, Singapore. In addition, he is a Member of the Regional Advisory Board for Asia of the International Monetary Fund; Trustee of the Asia Foundation in Asia; Council Member, Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA); and Vice-President, Economics Society of Singapore.

Manu Bhaskaran also serves on the boards of several companies whose businesses span the ASEAN region including CIMB Investment Bank (a subsidiary of CIMB Bank, Malaysia’s second largest bank and which operates across ASEAN), IFS Capital (listed in Singapore), Jebsen & Jessen SE Asia Limited, Japfa Ltd (listed in Singapore) and Luminor Capital.

Manu Bhaskaran was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge University where he earned an MA (Cantab) and at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he obtained a Masters in Public Administration. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.