- Current role
- Chief Executive Officer
- Company
- Arka Capital
- Experience
- 23 years
- Industry
- BFSI
- Based
- Chennai
About
Lakshmi Venkatesan has led Arka Capital since 2023. The firm manages money for domestic retail investors through a distribution network concentrated in tier-two cities, a position she has defended against pressure to compete for metropolitan direct-platform flows.
Her argument is that Arka’s distribution cost is its moat rather than its problem: the firm’s investors hold funds for materially longer than the industry average, which she attributes to having a person in the same town to call when markets fall.
Venkatesan began in operations at a custodian bank and moved into asset management in 2008. She chairs an industry working group on investor-disclosure simplification.
Leadership perspective
- Why not chase direct-platform flows?
- Because we would be the eleventh-best option on a screen that sorts by expense ratio. We are the first option in a conversation, and those are not the same business.
- What does your distribution network actually buy you?
- Holding period. Our investors stay through drawdowns at a rate that the industry averages do not touch, and that is worth more than the basis points it costs.