Ruwan Fernando
Founder & Managing Director, Mayleen Corporation
Industrialist | Africa Market Operator | Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Trade, Transport & Logistics
Ruwan Fernando is a Sri Lankan entrepreneur and investor with more than 25 years of international business experience across Africa, Asia and Europe. A substantial part of his career has been built on the African continent 20 years , where he has founded, developed and managed businesses and projects across Southern and Eastern Africa, with experience spanning infrastructure, manufacturing, power and energy, aviation, FMCG, electric,trading mobility, international trade and logistics.
Ruwan's logistics experience developed from the practical needs of operating and executing businesses and projects across Africa. As his activities expanded into medium and large scale infrastructure, manufacturing, imports, distribution and regional trade, efficient movement of industrial equipment, project cargo, finished products and people across ports, borders and long inland corridors became critical to commercial success.
Rather than treating logistics purely as an outsourced service, he developed freight, maritime, transport and project-logistics capabilities within his wider business platform. This gives him the unusual perspective of understanding logistics simultaneously as a cargo owner, industrialist, investor, project developer, importer, distributor and operator.
His African experience includes South Africa and Namibia, with exposure to the wider SADC market, Durban linked trade flows and the Walvis Bay Windhoek corridor, including initiatives involving Walvis Bay Port, inland transport and rail connectivity. In East Africa, he has operated extensively from Kenya, with practical experience involving Mombasa Port, Nairobi and regional corridors extending through Uganda into South Sudan. Ruwan has also utilized Djibouti Port as a strategic gateway for Ethiopian trade, gaining practical experience with one of Africa’s most distinctive logistics corridors, where maritime access through Djibouti serves the import and export needs of Ethiopia’s large, landlocked population.
Ruwan has worked across the wider architecture of African logistics, including seaports, dry ports, Container Freight Stations (CFSs), inland container depots, cargo railway systems, bonded facilities, offloading terminals, transshipment points, port-to-hinterland corridors, and multiple domestic and cross-border cargo-clearance platforms involving several government agencies. His experience also includes direct commercial engagement with international shipping lines, airlines, port-related operators and logistics providers, including the negotiation of specialised commercial arrangements where cargo volumes, project requirements or wider economic value justify preferential treatment. In addition, some of Ruwan’s EPC projects in Africa have been implemented under government projects supported by international funding agencies, where project cargo benefited from specialised import, port, customs and revenue-authority exemption frameworks. This has given him practical experience in managing logistics under non-standard regulatory and fiscal structures. Ruwan’s logistics operations have also supported projects within Export Processing Zones (EPZs), where customs, taxation, cargo movement and compliance requirements differ significantly from those applying in the domestic mainland market
His multimodal experience extends into aviation. Ruwan served as Managing Director of the SriLankan Airlines General Sales Agency in Kenya and has experience in airfreight, aircraft chartering, intercontinental charter operations, airport-related initiatives and aviation infrastructure.
Beyond transport and logistics, he has been involved in airport development and master planning, flyovers, power generation, transmission and distribution, electrification, civil engineering and manufacturing, working with governments, ministries, utilities, international contractors, technology partners and financial stakeholders.
Ruwan has also contributed to market and institutional development, including engagement with Enterprise Singapore, service as a Country Representative in Kenya for Sri Lanka's investment promotion interests, and participation as a Technical Committee Member of the Kenya Bureau of Standards National E-Mobility Committee.
He is also a Harvard Business School-certified business strategist, complementing formal business strategy knowledge with decades of practical market-development and operating experience.
In Africa, logistics is not merely a cost of doing business. When ports, corridors, infrastructure and regional distribution networks are properly understood, logistics becomes a competitive advantage.
