Leading with Humility: The Inspiring Journey of Dian Gomes

In this inspiring episode of Moments with Mamta, Dian Gomes joins Mamta to share an extraordinary journey of leadership, resilience, and service. A renowned Sri Lankan business leader, former Group Director of MAS Holdings, Honorary Consul of Georgia in Sri Lanka, and one of the driving forces behind the transformation of Sri Lankan boxing, Dian reflects on the life experiences that shaped his remarkable career. 

From losing his father at a young age to building a successful career in finance and eventually leading one of South Asia's largest apparel companies, Dian shares how mentorship, discipline, and humility became the cornerstones of his success. He recounts his passion for boxing, the lessons he learned inside the ring, and how those experiences influenced his leadership philosophy—one built on trust, empathy, and putting people before profits. His commitment to developing talent and fostering meaningful relationships helped him build high-performing teams while earning the respect of employees at every level. 

Dian also opens up about his mission to elevate Sri Lankan boxing to the international stage, the sacrifices he made to help athletes reach the Olympics, and the emotional rewards of serving something greater than himself. He shares valuable insights on mentorship, succession planning, work-life balance, and why true success isn't measured by awards or wealth, but by the positive impact we leave on others.

Filled with timeless leadership lessons and heartfelt stories, this conversation is a powerful reminder that humility, integrity, and service are the qualities that create a lasting legacy. 

Connect with Mamta Narula:
http://voiceofmamta.com/
https://www.facebook.com/mamta.narula
https://www.instagram.com/voice_of_mamta/
https://www.instagram.com/mamta1g/

Connect with Dian Gomes:
https://diangomes.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/diangomes57/?hl=en 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dian-gomes-2170a0120/ 

https://www.facebook.com/dian.gomes.982029/# 

Enjoyed the Episode?
✔ Subscribe to the podcast
✔ Share this episode with someone passionate about leadership and personal growth
✔ Follow for more inspiring conversations each week

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Mamta Nerula, radio host, MC, and storyteller. After 25 years connecting with audiences on EBC Radio and at major South Asian events, I'm excited to bring you Moments with Mamta. This podcast shares real conversations about the moments that shape us, stories of growth, grit, and inspiration. Thank you for listening and welcome to Moments with Mamta. Diane Gomes is a prominent Sri Lankan business leader, diplomat, and sports advocate, currently serving as the Honorary Council of Georgia in Sri Lanka. He is the former chairman of Hela Clothing and a former group director of Mass Holdings, a seasoned finance professional. Diane is a fellow of CMI UK, ACCA UK, and CPA Australia with executive education from Wharton, Ausricht, and Harvard Business Schools. It is just simply a pleasure to welcome Diane Gomes. He also happens to be the board of director at IBA Pro Boxing, a passionate boxer, an instructor. He's been on many boats related to boxing, and not only that he has had positions, he's worked very hard to take Sri Lankan boxing to a different level, including Olympics. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome Dan Gomes. So in Moments with Nabdana, we we we bring in personalities who have brought uh positive changes in people's life, and just listening to them uh is quite inspiring and motivating, and and somebody who loves to talk to people and learn from their journeys. I thought this personality who's coming um on the show today, and very esteemed personality from Sri Lanka is going to be an amazing guest. So, without um uh further ado, I'd like to welcome uh one of the uh I would say most respected personalities from Sri Lanka. He is also Sri Lanka's national honor awardee by Sri Lanka Shekamini. So, very, very respected in the community. A pleasure to have Mr. Diane Gomes um on Moments with Mantra. Diane, who welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Um, so my introduction to Diane was by accident. Um, I was visiting Colombo for like two days, and I went to this amazingly beautiful uh store that had everything lifestyle, and I was just attracted. And I saw um a guy sitting on on one of the benches there inside the store by the cafe, you know, very wearing a nice crisp white shirt and looking like you know somebody who's quite accomplished, and we just started talking uh very casual, and then um we got to learn a bit about him, and then we got to learn a lot about him. And um, and since then it was on my mind to have done you on my show, um, because what you have done um over the years uh is is is nothing short of you know a huge, huge um positive impact on your country and a very popular sport that we will talk about. That's boxing. So, Dan, before we get into all of that, uh business leader, a sportsperson, administrator, uh, and whatnot, how how was it growing up? Like I tell us something about your childhood. Where were you born, and then you know, your teens and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Actually, my father was a banker, um, he came from a very elite background, and uh my mother was a simple housewife uh from the middle class. So actually, uh, you know, they come from two different backgrounds, elite and and middle class. And my father being a banker um and uh second generation uh royalist, like the oldest uh college in Sri Lanka. And uh but I lost him when I was about 12 years. He uh so it was a devastating shock for us, me being the only child and uh losing my dad. But uh my mother was a very resilient uh woman, she kind of uh managed the whole situation. Uh, we had enough wealth to educate me and get me to uh all the necessary education that I needed. So after college, I embarked on an accounting career with KPMG and uh got my fellowship from Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in London, and uh that was my uh education. And subsequently, of course, uh I completed my ACC again with UK, CPA in Australia, and uh went to Harvard Business School and bought business schools later on in my life. But uh I had a great mentor at KPMG. I think he made the difference. He was like my um second father, Mr. Ranjan Sir, late Mr. Ranjan Sivaratnam, who kind of guided me in my early years at KPMG. And of course, we served on many boards subsequently, including the Swiss company Nestle PLC. So that gave me some kind of a comfort zone, although I lost my father early in my life. But of course, my mother coming from a middle class background, I had to fend for myself. I had to make all the calls. And I was very radical in my early years, and uh I was my schools, uh, which had a hundred-year-old history of boxing and with 10,000 people population, I was the Royals flyweight champion and went on to become the national junior national flyweight champion as well. But I was more out of school than in school. I was cutting school, running riot, and uh even in my senior year, I was not allowed to sit for the boxing photograph because I had a moustache. And my principal said, Look, Diane, the traditions of royal college does not allow anyone to sit for a photograph with a mustache, so out you go. So that was my early ill-disciplined kind of life. But after coming to KPMG, I got kind of focused, and by uh 23, I was a young financial controller in a multinational company called Saracens.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

So amazing, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Um, I was uh about maybe 30, 31, and uh within a year I was made the managing director for one of the plants called Slimline, which was a joint venture with Victoria Secrets, Mast Industries, and uh Cotoll's Textiles and 100-odd-year British company, which was subsequently taken over by Sara Lee Corporation. So I had three bosses, you know, and it was a bit of a nightmare in my younger days, you know, reporting to a US boss and uh an Israeli boss from uh from Sara Lee Corp and the local chairman Maya Shamalian. So I used to always tell it was like uh married to three women and and they live in the same house, and every call, every decision that you make would piss off two of them. So that was my young days, initial days, but I've realized, although I came from the finance background, that I wanted to, the most critical thing for success was managing people. And uh today, MAS Holdings has about 100,000 people in nine countries, and I kind of mastered it. Um, maybe I always had the skill uh through my sports, through my boxing, and being a corner man to people. So the skill was there, but because you were always numbers driven and KPI driven, uh, I never kind of knew that strength. But over the years I've realized that 60% of my time I devoted with people. I didn't have a single industrial unrest for my 27 years at MS Holdings. Wow. That's that's my biggest achievement. We had a very, very aggressive workforce because some of the plants have more than six, seven thousand people. And uh, I mean, for the slightest thing, they'd go on some strike or anything like that. But it never happened because they always felt uh, you know, I would take care of them, and it was rather my unorthodox style of management. I used to sit with the unofficial union, which was about 100,000, 150 people, selected democratically by the workforce of, say, five to six thousand people in every plan. I used to meet them once a month, myself and the union. And it's a free-for-all. They would criticize me, they would ask all tough questions, and my HR department didn't like it at all because they felt they were they were left out, um, that uh that I might slip up. I wasn't, I was never because as long as you tell them the truth and and the truth, so uh you could always kind of uh convince them, and there were differences of opinion, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

So uh but I'm sure there must be situations which were difficult for you to handle because when it comes to unions and dealing with so many people uh and getting the critiques and negative comments and complaints, how did you manage that? Because obviously inside you something would be happening, but you may mask it and present in a different way because you are a people's person.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I was always very genuine about it. I think I had a slight advantage because uh when I was young, I used to wear this Kangol cap, you know, to cover my baldness. But ultimately, you know, all over the world, even in the boxing world, they even if they forget my name, they will they will always uh uh you know uh always uh remember me as the man with the cap. So so uh even for the workforce, uh and and when I was young, I was more a socialist. So in the university days, so they used to always think, okay, you know, he's more to the left than running a capitalist company, and because it was a US, uh, you know, we used to run the US flag and the British uh Union Jack and the Sri Lankan flag in our factory. And but this guy they felt was very comfortable, and I was very, very good in the native language. So I could go to the grassroots level and I could address them. So they had some kind of faith. I don't know whether it was some pure luck or uh by what we call karma, that I was pretty good with them. They were hostile situations, but they never walked out. And I faced the firing score, and I told them the truth. I mean, there are times when the companies are not doing very well, they demand various things, and I said, Look, your my salary, I'm an employee, and my salary is maybe 100 times more than yours. So we should be on one side. If we if we make profit, I could take the share, tell the shareholders, look, we need to be taken care of, including myself and you all. So we I should get them all onto one page. And one of my biggest advantages, I'm telling you, by default, we started boxing because I was a Sri Lanka junior flyweight champion, started boxing in all our factories. Because I promised, I became the president of Sri Lanka boxing by 2002, and uh I I realized that there wasn't the uh anybody has not gone for Olympics in boxing for 40 years after 1968. So I promised the National Olympic Committee chairman that I would within eight years take a boxer for the Olympics. So we started recruiting about eight, nine boxers for the team, and we within a year we beat the national champions army. And I was always in the corner. So when you mean, when you mean what I mean by going to the corner, when the boxer sits down after a three-minute first round, the coach will get into the ring and within the first 30 seconds tell one or two things. Because you know, you can't tell stories when the boy is getting hammered by that. And I used to take the gum shield, wash the spit, and you know, if he's bleeding, stop the bleeding. And I've got 30 seconds of mind time with him one-on-one to motivate him to fight. And when 6,000 people in any of the plants, or you know, across the across our group, the the stadiums are packed because they are there, these boys are their heroes, and you see the chief executive, you know, washing the spit, putting the gum shell back and motivating, and they have absolute confidence if it comes to a crunch, your CEO will be with you. So I think by default, without my knowledge, they had a great bond that the chief executive goes to the front line with with them. And wherever I went, I I operated the factories in Kenya, uh, factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia, in all these places, I've realized it is a human touch and the respect that people need. And especially when you come from an elite background in an Asian society and then study in the UK and you know do accountancy and then go to places like Harvard and Wharton, right? It's very difficult for a chief executive to get down from the pedestal and be with the workers.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

I used to have what made you what made you do that? Like it what is it your core personality?

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I think it's my core personality. I I've had breakfast with uh Prince Charles, you know, 40 years ago, and I could sit with the my toilet cleaner and have a cup of plain tea. And I think my school, although it was the largest public school in Sri Lanka, had people from the rich class and the poor class and all that. And the boxing team generally consists of people from underprivileged backgrounds because everybody else would play cricket or rugby or tennis, while the underprivileged lot would, especially the ruffians, would uh put on the gloves and fight. So since I came with a boxing background, that helped me as well in the school.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So did you start actually uh getting uh you know attracted towards boxing or that sport? That was very young age.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I I was about 16, 17. I was like the pre-university uh couple of years back before I started boxing by default, and then I won the title at Royal for four years, and uh then became the Sri Lanka junior flyweight champion. But I tried to fight at the national level for the Asian games trial, and I was floored by this guy, and uh, this is a great lesson which I learned because I was cocky and arrogant, and uh that made me get that knockout to the floor. So I realized if you're arrogant, the first thing which will happen is you will fall, and you will fall with a big thug. And this guy who comes from a very underprivileged background tells me after 25 years, when he was nationally recognized, he told me one thing. He said, Diane, you came from an elite background and you were fighting for the honor of your college. I was fighting for my life, and I was not allowing anyone to stand in between, you know, myself and representing my country, Sri Lanka, and he went on to win a bronze medal at the Asian Games. You know, so I've and and he said the most important thing, he said when I got into the ring, you know, the five judges, when I looked at them, came from very elite backgrounds. Most of them had on the left-hand side the school crest, which was Royal College or St. Thomas's, all the public schools. And on the right hand side, you know, British universities, Oxford, Cambridge, University of London. So obviously I felt, you know, if it is a split decision on points, you're going to win. So I was not allowing anyone to stand in between, and you were lucky not to have got yourself knocked out. So that was my first lesson on meritocracy. And when when I became a chief executive, I've realized it didn't matter to me where they came from, which nationality, and we had a multinational set of people from all over the world, you know, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Indians, Filipinos, right? And I've operated all over the world, and I've realized, you know, your success and your credibility is on meritocracy. You can make the tough calls, and you will pick the best team, you'll treat them very well with respect. And then, you know, when we started, it was a six million dollar company. When I retired, it was a two and a half billion turnover company, the largest South uh the apparel company in Southeast Asia, and of course the largest company in Sri Lanka. And with the two of them.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

It's simply amazing. So so I was just thinking that from an accountant to business leader to a sports administrator, you I think it's your personality that has. I think boxing has definitely played a big role in your life uh to shape who you are. Because you need to have that kind of an attitude to first of all to be a boxer, right? Um, your journey is just simply um, I don't even have words. It's not just inspiring, it's like the life lessons that you have learned at every stage that needs to be shared. It's a simple lesson of not being arrogant, right? Arrogancy will not take you anywhere. Um tell us because I want us uh younger generation younger than me to learn. Because I to me, the mantra of success is that, right? You can be very technically savvy in your field, but who you are plays a big role and your relationship with the people. So teach us some more lessons. I think this podcast must be about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

It's it's all about humility. You know, what made me select or go into boxing uh and to take over the mantle of leadership in Sri Lanka boxing was in 1999, um, you know, a young colonel called Chagar Jayasuria, who was my batchmate in school, took me as a corner man for the SAF games in Nepal. And uh subsequently Jayasuria became the commander of the army. So uh at the meet, we won one medal after a long time. A private, army private called Sumit Prasanna won the gold medal. And uh I was about 30 feet away from the podium when he got the medal. It was a very emotional moment when you know the country wins a medal, the national flag is hoisted, and the national anthem is being played anywhere in the world. I've done about seven Olympics, and any any country which wins, you know, and and when you stand up for that anthem, you know, you have tears and emotion with you, and especially when your own country, you know, wins it wins a gold medal, you know, the first time that I've seen that, um, I was emotionally moved. This boxer walks into me, you know, puts a medal on my neck, and worships me. And I'm stunned. I'm emotionally moved, and I asked why, and he says, Sir, I know your position in the country. You know, you are a chief executive of a large organization. You don't have to travel 10,000 miles to tie my shoelace and take my gum shale, wash my spit, and put it back and motivate me. The only way that I could reciprocate is, you know, putting the medal on your neck and worshipping you, which they only do for the priest or the parents. You know, you don't go and you know, worship, you know, outsiders. I was stunned because I worshipped, you know, my coach, Late Dantan Obesekara, who was the first Asian captain Cambridge University, you know, the you know, in his death to his coffin. But, you know, not when I boxed for my school, I used to hug us and say, Well done, that's it, and shake hands. There was no worship in business. So I was moved, and then I realized you don't have to go to Harvard business school to learn humility. You know, a private, you know, without much education, you know, taught me what humility is. And that only got me to work on taking the leadership mantle of boxing in Sri Lanka and promise my country that within eight years I'll take somebody for the Olympics, which I didn't know at that time that only 28 people qualify for Olympics. And first uh trial, first selection trials is the one year before the Olympics, the world championships. We have 135 countries take part. And if you don't make it there, in Asia, there are about 60 countries taking part. And a country like Sri Lanka be a dog shots. So I took on that challenge and it took me eight years, 27 tours with my money. You know, funding three boys as the coach, going all over the world. I mean, you name it, I put my risk, I put my job at risk being a chief executive. You know, my wife was on my case, my daughters are screaming. Every holiday, the man is the father is going with the team, you know, pack my bags, you know, buy the tickets for them because government was uh not funding us, nor the National Olympic Committees, you know, funding myself and some sponsors. And for eight years we travel the world and 27 and defeat after defeat. You know, you had to win, you have to have, you have to win five fights to get into the uh the gold medal level. You know, we come to the third fight, quarter finals, and sometimes I had to come back because I had to come to work by, you know, you go on a Friday night and come back on Sunday night, you know, and and uh make it to work. And I get a I get a text, you know, somewhere in Dubai at the airport saying, sorry, Diane, we lost all three fights. And how many times you would imagine that I would have cried, you know, but by 2007 at the World Championships, we qualified ourselves in Chicago, you know, against all odds, one guy made it to the quarterfinals winning three fights, and after 40 years, I took a boy for the Olympic Games. So awesome. You know, it was tough, and it took me another 10 years, and after 72 years, we won another gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, and some pack has given some steroid or something, an Android, not an Android, it was called Deca Durabolin. And after one week, with all that joy, the the medal was taken off. I was devastated. I was devastated. Then it took me another eight years to win three medals at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

So you you all the process, you must have led a very busy life. You're traveling, you're totally focusing on this, and then you have a job. Where did family come in the picture? Were they getting enough of you?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

More than the family. People ask me, I was the president of the institute, Chadan Seema Institute. I have done about 800 lectures uh and and three times at Oxford University and one time at Imperial. I used to travel and give lectures, I used to teach, and uh, I was a boxing chief, I was a vice president of the National Olympic Committee and running a billion-dollar company. People ask, where do you have the time? I have one answer to that. Recruit people who are better than you.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

You know, you know, it's another management lesson. Another management lesson, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

In in in cricketing terms, because where we come from, I would say if you have Tendulka, Murilidaran, Shane Vaughan, and uh, you know, all the guys in one team, it'll be a nightmare to manage them. But I don't think you will even have a chance to back because you will only take the World Cup home. So, my mantra was recruit the best, train the best, best send them to the best business schools and get that energy and do the direction, do the leadership, you know, coach them, teach them, and be with them in the front line. So that if there's somebody shooting, I'll take the bullet. You know, I'll take the first bullet. You know, you're covered, your back's covered. We are not making rockets, we are making panties for Victoria's secrets, right? Nobody dies on the operating table. You're not surgeons, you know. Come on, come on get on and do the job. We'll get a million dollar claim, so be it. We'll fight back and we'll hit the numbers. And in my 27 years, I only missed once in 2008. But other than that, you know, I never missed the number because people are motivated, people don't understand. You know, if you talk to their mind or to their heart, you know, uh, you be you build a guerrilla force, you know. So I used to use some of the tactics, talking to people 60% of my time, you know, uh telling the vision and and make them into very competitive, competitive mode. Because my nature, the Asians are very competitive. You know, they will compete, you know, on anything, including the next door, uh what you call neighbor's dog to the ladies, sari to Eurosian mentality, right? They'll compete on anything, right? So you make every opportunity to make them competitive. That's what I did with my plans. We had 100 million hours without a single accident, and I won the safety award from Sara D Corporation beating all the 800 odd plants, including the US plants. And I got uh $100,000, uh, and we did with that $100,000, we did uh pediatric ward at the Panadur hospital, one of the hospitals. And the guys asked me, the guy who came to evaluate and one of my chief executives, how the hell did you do it? I said, if you have the feeling that it is your young child operating in the factory environment, and if you make enough, if it is your child, you will make enough precautions to safeguard your child's well-being. Right? Zero harassment, zero, you know, things like you know, you know, managing the electricity cables, or I mean, you don't have, but our in an Asian environment, sometimes they don't want to uh wear the safety uh uh stuff. I said, if you if you act on it and zero tolerance for all those, you can win any world. So that was my and he was quite shocked because when we beat you know worldwide, including the European plants and the US plants for Sarah Lee, you know, it's a tough thing. And they did a again a recheck. How the hell did we make it? And that was my answer. It has to be in your DNA. You have to see that as a chief executive, you need to think it's my daughter who's working there. So I'll make sure there's no sexual harassment and that people are treated with respect. People don't do crazy stuff, you know. They have safety harnesses. Other people tell me, so I can, you know, climb up and you don't need the safety harness. I said, No, sorry. Without the safety harness, it's a you'll you're fired, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Uh change rules and regulations, right? There's gotta be that. Um so tell me one thing. Um, uh what are your thoughts on the boxing in Sri Lanka today? Uh has it come true now satisfied? You're happy. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So sorry, I didn't I didn't understand.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah, so my question was like, what are your thoughts on the on the status of boxing today in Sri Lanka? Um, are you satisfied where it is today?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

No, I I am not because I moved from Sri Lanka boxing into the world stage. I'm I'm one of the 10 directors of uh of uh International Boxing Association and uh the Asian Boxing Association. So I have done uh kind of two terms now. So I moved from the Sri Lanka boxing, but at the moment, Sri Lanka boxing is at a standstill because you know, after running it for 23 years, uh I've decided I need to step down. I mean to give to younger people. But you know, sometimes at a corporate level, you have a clear succession plan and clear governance procedures. So the CEO can leave, but the organization moves on, and maybe the culture will change a little bit. But at the end of the day, the procedures, the processes are in place. But in something like sports in this part of the world, it's different because it's honorary positions, you don't get paid. So you are being elected by the clubs, and uh, unfortunately, clubs can be wooed by promising various things to win the vote. So the whole idea is not to get a medal through, but what's in for me syndrome, you know, to go on trade, you know, uh let's have a let's have a good time. So that has evolved uh in this part of the world, in every sport, not only in boxing. So it's very, very tough and uh to uh manage it at the moment. So I'm I'm struggling with uh the administration. I keep on telling them, you know, do this, do that, because uh, me being an accountant, governance is important, so you know we have we have issues, but lots of uh luck for that because I feel that uh a person like you will not be able to see that.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

You know, you would want to do whatever it takes uh to make it better, right? Um tell me one more thing. I remember when we were in your daughter's store, you were telling us a story. Uh, because I think I mentioned there as well that you must be very busy when your kids were growing up. So, did you miss out on some of their classes? Because I think one of your daughters was very good in swimming.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Of course. Of course. My my wife took the mother's role, the father's role, uh, and she ran a business. And today, my my younger daughter, you know, studied uh they both studied uh at Imperial for their masters, one lives in London, one's back, and they run the businesses. But my wife, you know, ran a fairly one of the larger interior construction companies, and she kept it. And one day my younger daughter, who's now the chief executive, asked, Hey, you ran it for 30 years, but I didn't see the growth that uh you should have had. Uh, because four years, uh, within four years, when she's the chief executive, she took the company three times more to about 1.6 billion rupees. So my wife said two things. If you know I was driving the business, most probably you wouldn't have had a mother, and uh you wouldn't have uh, you know, your father wouldn't have had me as a wife. So therefore, I'm the one, although your father is the athlete. Uh, I'm the one who took you all for the for training in the morning at four o'clock, five o'clock, and uh, you know, made the sandwiches for you and and uh you know took you all for the you know extra lessons, etc. Because both represented Sri Lanka at uh uh Asian Games at Commonwealth Games in synchronized swimming, and uh they were they came up to the finals in uh two of the Commonwealth Games. So they were serious athletes, but I was never there. And one incident which they will never forgive me is when we won the gold medal in 2010 Commonwealth Games. I was with the boxing guy and not with my daughter who was in the finals. So I had either chose, you know, the boxing finals, you know, where I knew that I would win a medal, and my daughter's finals in synchronized swimming, where I knew she wouldn't win a medal. You know, she was number six. So I had to make the call. The call is for you know the greater good of my country. So and in my in my biography, my I end uh by saying one day that uh they will uh realize and recognize that I made uh Sri Lanka strong and Sri Lanka proud.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

It is a very tough call as a father and as somebody who's like you know so possessive about the sport that you were supporting. Was she very upset with you?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

At that time she was very upset, but I think in the years to come now they are like in their 30s, they have realized what it was, right? And uh they don't they don't uh they don't uh say anything about that anymore. They realized that uh you know they have moved on. So uh I mean they are.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

So Diana, are you at this point, are you like fully retired?

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I'm fully retired. I'm the consult general for Georgia in Sri Lanka, and uh my last board position was Nestlé's PLC, the Swiss company. So I've uh retired from there as well after nine years, and uh I'm a director of international boxing, so I travel the world every eight weeks, uh, you know, all over the globe, and I teach, I mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs, and most of my time uh I I teach. I actually did a did a lecture today uh to the Chartered Institute of Chartered Accountants, you know, it's a one-hour lunchtime and 293 people listen to me. So I was telling them I'm quite surprised that you know during lunchtime 293 people want to listen to me, but uh that's what I do. I spend a lot of my time teaching.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Okay, and and what does Diane do in his free time?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

I I'm a landscape artist. If you see my house in Colombo, you know, I don't see the neighborhood. And even the street, uh I have planted so many trees, and I have some villas as well. And there's one villa in Singaraja, the last uh one of the few uh natural reserves and rainforests in this part of the world. I think the one of the few remaining rainforests called Singharaja. So I have taken uh six acres of tea uh just adjoining that, because it's a very restricted area, and I've grown it into another jungle in the tea estate. So I love you know growing trees and I'm very involved in art. I I'm a collector of art, I go and see all the museums in the world, so and I travel. So in the next uh uh few weeks, I'm traveling to Rwanda with my wife to see the gorillas.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Oh, nice, very nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

I've done about 102 countries now. So my life, I'm 68 now. I hope I'm strong enough to do about another 10 more countries.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

More than 10, and God bless you with all that energy that you have, the passion that you have, and the humility that you carry with you. It's it's it's it's an honor to talk to you. Uh, if there is one thing that you want to share with all these entrepreneurs living in the US or people who are listening to Mamitz Vid Mamata, what would that be? That's one lesson.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

You have to understand the life is a very short period. You know, we all have a time span on this earth. And if you are going to think you are never going to die and you keep on working, and you know, a day will come that you'll regret. First of all, I mean, you have all TikToks, you have all on social media, take care of your health, you know, enjoy life because how many cars can you park in your garage? How many houses can you leave? And uh I I just tell when I teach and uh lecture, what would people tell or think when they come to the cemetery to bury you or to cremate you? Right? What would be in their mind? You know, I have won every corporate award in this country in my career, every award, you know, and ran one of the best companies. Does it mean anything? No, for God's sake, please understand all that glory is gone. You don't want to be the richest man on cemetery, right? Enjoy life, teach, make a difference to the people, so they'll remember you as a man who made a difference in their life. It may be a kind word, it may be just opening the doors or something. Make that difference. You'll be a much more happier, much more contented man than a great entrepreneur. It means nothing in the end. When you are young, of course, I want to be a best chief executive, win all the awards, win the gold medal. Now, does it mean anything? No.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Wow, I just feel like I should just keep talking to you. It was such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Diane. I think your the words will resonate with me for a long time. And um uh uh may God bless you with great health, may you keep traveling, uh, meeting gorilla and anyone that you want to, any part of the world and enjoy, and please give my regards to your family. We are very proud of you, Diane. And it's such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Thanks for joining me on Moments with Manta. If today's conversation inspired you, please follow, share, and stay connected for more meaningful stories. Until next time, this is Bamta signing off.