Profile

Vickum Nawagamuwage

Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Santani Wellness Resorts

Vickum Nawagamuwage is a Sri Lankan born entrepreneur and founder of the world-renowned, purpose-built wellness resort, Santani. He was educated at Harvard and the University of Maryland, and worked in strategy consulting both at Deloitte Consulting and KPMG in the US. Santani has fast become one of the world’s leading wellness resorts with a host of awards including accolades from Vogue, Time 100 greatest places, Tatler, Forbes, CondeNast Traveler. Vickum and his philosophy of Human Sustainability is the first to associate the current stress and mental health pandemic as a result of an evolutionary mismatch. Stress is a symptom. Mental health issues are symptoms. The world has created many a solution to these symptoms. However, Vickum focused on understanding the root causes of stress and the mental health pandemic. He theorised that in the recent past there has been a shift in the mind and body’s utility in survival but we still think of survival of the fittest from a physical fitness point of view. In addition, the digital age has created exponential demands on our cognitive faculties that is far more than the capability of these faculties. This has resulted in a constant struggle to cope up and ultimately stress and mental health issues. This root cause needs a solution for adapting and not just managing the stress. The solution toolkit has a specific focus on preventative healthcare, actively taking care of the mental fitness, and spiritual fitness. With real and sustainable results, Human Sustainability concept is poised to replace the current curative healthcare paradigm with a preventative healthcare paradigm that holistically looks at physical, mental and spiritual fitness.