As Harendra Samarasinghe, Chief Executive Officer at MillenniumIT ESP, shares with Echelon, the measure of success is earned over decades — not claimed overnight. Under his leadership, MIT ESP enters its most ambitious chapter: embedding AI and intelligent automation across the critical systems it has operated for nearly thirty years. The goal is clear — accelerate outcome-based delivery and help customers compete smarter, move faster, and lead decisively in their markets.
MIT ESP turns 30 this year, from a Colombo startup to powering the London Stock Exchange. How do you describe that journey?
Very few technology companies anywhere in the world can point to a moment where a global institution acquired the entire company because of a standout product. MIT ESP has had that moment.
Founded in Malabe in 1996, the team secured a contract from the Colombo Stock Exchange within a year. They went on to reimagine the brief and build a pioneering straight-through processing system that set a new benchmark for what Sri Lankan technology could deliver. By the mid-2000s, it produced Millennium Exchange, a high-performance trading platform that led the London Stock Exchange Group to acquire MIT ESP outright in 2009. What followed was a genuine global scale, powering exchanges across London, Johannesburg, Milan, and beyond.
In 2017 came the next defining turn. Ambeon Group, our publicly listed holding company, acquired the enterprise solutions business from LSEG, bringing MIT ESP home in the fullest sense of the word. Ambeon structured the acquisition to include employees directly, giving the people who built this company an equity stake in what they’re building.
What does the next chapter look like?
Three decades of running systems that cannot fail give you something very hard to buy: earned trust. My job is to build on that, not disrupt it.
The next chapter is intelligence embedded into how our platforms operate and how customers run their businesses, not offered as a feature. Gartner predicts 40% of enterprise applications will integrate AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025, and by 2029, 70% of enterprises will deploy agentic AI in IT operations. Thanks to our 30-year foundation, MIT ESP is positioned to capture this space, moving workloads into intelligent, autonomous systems without compromising stability or governance.
Why do people tend to stay?
At MIT ESP, engineers work on systems that keep industries running. When you’re responsible for the infrastructure a country depends on, you feel that weight, and most good engineers want to feel it.
New roles are emerging: agent architects, performance engineers, and AI oversight specialists. Our people are being built for these, not retrofitted.
By 2027, 75% of hiring processes will test for AI proficiency. We are ahead of that curve.
How do you see MIT ESP’s role in national challenges?
When you run critical systems for a country, you are part of that country’s infrastructure, full stop.
The Fuel Pass was a platform for millions of users, built and deployed in under 10 days under extreme national pressure. That’s proof of competence. What struck me coming in from outside was how engineers treated national challenges as their own problem to solve. As markets move towards outcome-based delivery, that instinct is a genuine competitive differentiator.
How has employee ownership changed the organisation?
I’ve seen firsthand the difference between a team that clocks out and one that genuinely owns the outcome; it shows in quality, speed, and how people handle pressure. The Fuel Pass showed why contracted hours are not the same as personal accountability.
Through direct investment and a structured Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), Ambeon has made MIT ESP’s people genuine partners in long-term value creation. Growth can dilute an ownership mindset if you’re not deliberate. I intend to be.
Where does MIT ESP fit as the sector evolves?
Customers now buy outcomes, not technology. If you can’t speak that language, you’ll lose.
Gartner, Forrester, and IDC agree: AI in 2026 is about integration and accountability. The market rewards proven infrastructure depth. Time-and-materials is giving way to outcome-based models, and MIT ESP’s combination of infrastructure credibility and intelligence capability is exactly what this demands.
The organisations that won in markets ahead of Sri Lanka moved from system integrators to platform partners. We are making that move with 30 years beneath us.
What does it take to build credibility from Colombo?
You deliver. Repeatedly. And you don’t make excuses about where you’re based.
Digital sovereignty has shifted from a European regulatory debate to a global strategic imperative. Governments and enterprises across Asia Pacific are demanding control over who technically operates their platforms, putting regional players with deep local knowledge in a stronger position than ever.
I’ve seen businesses where being from a smaller economy meant working twice as hard for a first meeting. You overcome that through an undeniable track record, not marketing. Location is not a constraint. Inconsistent delivery is.
How do you compete with larger international players?
Scale without agility is a liability. Large players bring process layers, longer decision cycles, and solutions built for the median customer.
Specialists are gaining share from generalists. McKinsey projects the cybersecurity market at $220 billion growing at 13% CAGR reshaped by capability, not headcount. Even Accenture built its AI credibility through consistent execution, securing $3 billion in GenAI bookings by delivering, not positioning. You win on trust and execution, until size stops being the question.
We are building MIT ESP to be that partner regionally and globally. Not the biggest in the room. The most trusted.