Manisha Tank
A senior leadership stage is only as good as the person running it. A weak host lets time slip, leaves panellists unchallenged, and turns a marquee moment into a forgettable session. The buyer’s real risk is not the speakers on the bill, it is the editorial judgement of whoever holds the room.
Manisha Tank is an international broadcast journalist and conference host who runs senior leadership stages across Asia, with a deep editorial reach in fintech, sustainability and the wider digital economy.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Manisha Tank
- Five years hosting the Singapore Fintech Festival, the largest fintech gathering in Asia, gives her live editorial command of a 7,000-seat stage and a working knowledge of the sector’s senior players.
- A 25-year anchoring career across Reuters Television, BBC News and CNN International means she interviews from a position of subject fluency, not a script. She has put questions to CEOs, founders, policymakers and heads of state on live broadcast television.
- She moderates the Milken Institute Asia Summit and hosted Earthshot+ during The Earthshot Prize week in Singapore in 2023. Both events demand a host who can move between climate finance, technology and policy in the same panel without losing the room.
- She produces and hosts long-form branded podcast series for Standard Chartered CCIB and Accenture, so corporate communications teams are buying a known editorial product, not an unknown.
- Based in Singapore. A buyer running a regional summit in Asia gets a host who understands the regulatory, political and capital context their senior speakers actually operate in.
Biography highlights
- 25-plus years as an international broadcast journalist for Reuters Television, BBC News and CNN International.
- Former anchor of CNN’s News Stream from Hong Kong (Asian TV Awards, Best TV News Programme) and Talk Asia.
- Host of the Singapore Fintech Festival for five consecutive years.
- Moderator at the Milken Institute Asia Summit and host of Earthshot+ at The Earthshot Prize Singapore 2023.
- Host of the podcast Tank Talks Asia, and producer of corporate podcast series for Standard Chartered CCIB and Accenture.
- Winner, Summerson Goodacre and Daily Telegraph Wealth Management Award for Best Industry Commentator, 2007. Read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford.
Biography
Running a senior conference stage is a different craft from delivering a keynote on it. The host sets the editorial pace, frames the question the panel is actually there to answer, and decides when to press a CEO and when to move on. Get it wrong and a marquee event reads as flat. Get it right and the room produces the material that gets quoted for the rest of the year.
That is the work Manisha Tank has done for two and a half decades. She spent the formative part of her career as a financial news reporter for Reuters Television, posted to New York to cover the Nasdaq and the NYSE in the late 1990s, then anchored business and main news bulletins for BBC News in London. She joined CNN International in the mid 2000s and fronted News Stream from Hong Kong, which won Best TV News Programme at the Asian TV Awards, and the long-form interview series Talk Asia.
Now based in Singapore, she has built a second career as the editorial host of the region’s most senior business stages. Five consecutive years at the Singapore Fintech Festival. Recurring moderation work at the Milken Institute Asia Summit. Host of Earthshot+ at The Earthshot Prize week in Singapore in November 2023, the investor-facing day of Prince William’s climate prize. She produces and hosts long-form branded podcast series for Standard Chartered CCIB and Accenture, and her own podcast, Tank Talks Asia, interviews senior figures from across the region.
Her subject anchors are fintech, financial inclusion, sustainability and digital transformation. Her award for Best Industry Commentator from the Daily Telegraph and Summerson Goodacre dates back to 2007. The continuity is the craft itself: she remains one of the few hosts in Asia who can hold a CEO panel, a head-of-state interview and a climate finance session in the same programme without losing the room.
Key speaking topics
- Conference hosting and main-stage moderation
- Panel moderation for senior leadership audiences
- Fintech and financial inclusion in Asia
- Net zero transition finance and sustainability
- Digital transformation and emerging technologies
- Corporate podcast hosting and branded audio
Ideal for
- Senior business and finance summits in Asia that need an experienced editorial host on the main stage.
- CEO-level panel sessions on fintech, sustainability or digital transformation where the moderator needs to push without breaking the room.
- Corporate communications and marketing leads commissioning long-form branded podcast series with a recognisable broadcaster.
- Investor days, awards nights and after-dinner programmes that require an emcee with broadcast pedigree.
Audience outcomes
- A programme that runs to time, with sessions that end on the question the audience came to hear answered.
- Panels that get past prepared talking points, because the moderator knows the subject and the speakers.
- A senior audience that stays in the room for the second half of the day.
- A set of session clips and quotes the marketing team can use long after the event.