President of India, Franklin Resources Inc
Roshan Abbas in conversation with Avinash Satwalekar | Change The Soch
Roshan Abbas, Founder of Kommune, joined Avinash Satwalekar, President of Franklin Templeton India, for an insightful conversation about the purpose, learnings, and impact of Franklin Templeton's "Change The Soch" initiative.
Over 30 days, across 21 cities, and spanning 4,000+ kilometres from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, Change the Soch drive travelled across India to better understand women's relationship with money - their saving habits, investing behaviour, financial aspirations, and the barriers they face in taking charge of their financial future.
In this conversation, Avinash revealed the s...
About Avinash Satwalekar
Avinash Satwalekar, President of Franklin Templeton India, has been discussing market volatility, investment products, and India's economic outlook in recent appearances. In an April 2026 conversation about the Sapphire Equity Long-Short SIF, Satwalekar said that the current volatility is "not unusual" and that markets go through phases every three to five years, though they appear to be happening more quickly. He described Specialized Investment Funds (SIFs) as filling a gap between mutual funds and Portfolio Management Services, noting that they allow for derivative use beyond hedging, including "0-25% naked shorts," and require a minimum investment of 10 lakh rupees. Satwalekar stated that investors are increasingly focused on using volatility as an opportunity rather than being victims of it. Speaking at EVOKE 2026 in March, Satwalekar addressed India's global position, saying that while foreign investors have pulled out money, they have also invested significantly, and that much of the outflow is due to private equity funds exiting after taking companies public. He said India's oil dependency has decreased by about 27%, and that oil is expected to stabilize around $90 per barrel on average for the year. In a separate March interview with Moneycontrol, Satwalekar advised investors to "stay calm" during volatile markets, focus on long-term goals, and continue systematic investment plans (SIPs), which he said were designed for such conditions. He also expressed confidence in the financial sector, stating that a strong financial system is core to any economy and that nothing has changed regarding the long-term growth outlook for Indian banks.
Transcript (45 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
India and gold is a relationship. If you don't because
A
Avinash Satwalekar0:03
It's not that you don't want to invest in gold, you want to think of alternatives as well. When you take a financial decision based on emotion, those are nine out of 10.
I
Interviewer0:13
Oh my god, they never heard of a mutual fund. If you get the woman in a community responsible for the finances, automatically the benefits accrue not just to her, but they accrue to the entire community. If you were doing this for fun and pleasure, don't do it. You know, I've normally seen people do boardrooms, conferences.
A
Avinash Satwalekar0:45
What made you decide on this drive? It started with a conversation I had with our women employees on Women's Day in 2023 and just asking them about kind of what how do they think about investing etc. And most of them were like well our husband does it, father does it, brother does it said why don't you do it like I have no interest you know this is in Mumbai right the financial capital of the country in a mutual fund company and our own employees are saying well they're not really that's where it started and now your point about you know boardrooms versus the dry if you want to truly make a change, you have to get women on board. And if you want to make a true change in the country, you have to get rural women on board, right? Because we've seen enough micro finance studies,
I
Interviewer1:46
Right? And they all point to what? If you get the woman in a community responsible for the finances, automatically the benefits accrue not just to her but they accrue to the entire community. No, it's that famous line, right? I mean, you educate a woman, you educate a village.
A
Avinash Satwalekar2:05
Exactly. If we're having this kind of a approach in urban, then the in the rural markets, it's going to be a whole host of different issues and even more and that's where you need it. Right.
I
Interviewer2:17
Absolutely. And I think that so for us it was more around I mean at least for me in particular it was like okay where can we have the most impact and where's the most need and that's what drove the entire thing. When was the first time you realized that there is this big bat versus India I mean you know we don't realize it but I mean I travel a lot because of work and then I when I'm there sometimes it really strikes me saying wow we such a diverse nation. Yeah. So when did it first hit you saying wow?
A
Avinash Satwalekar2:47
I think it hits you the minute you hit the first town. Me it was more around the kind of questions right it was the the way they approached certain things. And what was most surprising also was that it's not that they lacked confidence they lacked conviction. Confidence is what my confidence is that okay I'm fairly comfortable speaking with you. Right? So there's a little bit of that comfort factor that needs to happen that builds your confidence. Conviction is that when I'm making a decision, it is a targeted it is a designed. It is not happenstance. It isn't just okay well it's not like that. It's actually and it's purposeful. So that I found was remarkable.
I
Interviewer3:35
You're so right. I mean this whole thing about conviction.
A
Avinash Satwalekar3:39
Yeah. And you know there there are so many people who run these little micro economies I think in one of the cities where you were there were people making gajaras yeah actually in the south jasmine is a very
I
Interviewer3:51
Oh yes
A
Avinash Satwalekar3:51
I mean it's an amazing flower itself right and you can't go to any temple without having it especially in the south right so what we found was that every market had these massive bunches of these jasmine flowers. And you kind of as we moved up north, we noticed that the massive bunches became slightly less massive bunches. And you poof you move further up north and became like, okay, there's let's put a gap in between two flowers.
I
Interviewer4:25
There's a question of abundance in certain parts and then there's a question of pricing. Most of the women don't realize this in the south because they're surrounded by it. So for them putting like 50 flowers on a 6 inch string is okay that's normal. You take that thousand kilometers north and they're like what the hell are you doing?
A
Avinash Satwalekar4:51
No no and by flanges after a while right I mean I think you would have seen
I
Interviewer4:55
Everything change in that manner. There's also this propensity of you know people investing in gold right? I mean India and gold is a relationship. Were you able to show them that there were alternate means or methods as well? And what does it take? I mean, give me tell me a story of
A
Avinash Satwalekar5:12
So I think the you brought up I mean use a real key word which is alternate means.
I
Interviewer5:17
Absolutely. Yeah.
A
Avinash Satwalekar5:18
Because gold is not an investment for us. It's a cultural kind of I mean it's a massive thing. And it doesn't matter whether you believe in the value of gold or you say that you're not looking at it as an inflation edge et all the financial jargon and the rationale around it. It's more a trusted value, right? It's a store of value. It's not something that I intend to use in my lifetime. I intend to pass it on. So I don't think we ever said and I don't believe that either that you shouldn't invest in gold. By all means you should, right? If that's what you want to do, you should do it, but do it consciously. It's the same thing, right? If I'm putting 100% of my portfolio in gold, I don't think that's the right thing anyway. Just like I would say if you put 100% of your portfolio in equities, that's not the right thing. You want to be diversified across different asset classes.
When you tell them about a mutual fund, then you say that, hey, this is possibly an alternate means of investment and you were saying that you don't need to put everything into equity. You need to have a diversified portfolio. Correct. How did you get the idea of diversification to them? One thing that was very clear that I found was that you have to be able to have a conversation in their language in the sense that not literal language but making sure that they understand and appreciate what from their practical life right so if I come and tell you about asset allocation and all that stuff is going to be a waste of time so what does a farmer do when you think about it right any farmer is actually doing diversification. They don't even realize it. And till I thought about it, I didn't realize it. And what do I mean by that? You have seasons for different crops.
I
Interviewer7:18
Ah, diversification, crop rotation. You're doing crop rotation. Oh, how fantastic. Now, so it was a conversation. They must have got that right. I mean,
A
Avinash Satwalekar7:26
Completely. So they said, okay, well, so they were like couple couple of them said, well, we do it for different reasons. So I said of course diversification is for a different reason you're doing it why? Well this is the best time of the year to grow this also when you grow a different crop it enriches the soil in a different manner which makes it ready.
I
Interviewer7:46
So true for the next crop.
A
Avinash Satwalekar7:47
So true. So I said that's exactly what your different asset classes are.
I
Interviewer7:53
Amazing. I will tell you that there was not a single IP that we left where people were not convinced okay that they needed to start doing something. So is there a lack of awareness?
A
Avinash Satwalekar8:09
Correct. So what does that tell you? That is exactly right. It's not that I don't want to do it. It's not that I don't understand it. It's just that I don't know about it.
I
Interviewer8:17
Were there some other kind of audiences that tell me some kind some because really we don't even know who all you met.
A
Avinash Satwalekar8:22
Okay. So the whole gamut that we went across was farmers, fisher women, we met students, teachers, we met the armed forces, the javans, we went and met police forces. So we met different kinds of students also. We did a nursing college, we did lawyers. If I was to ask you saying that give me two fundamentals that everybody should sort of just know
I
Interviewer8:51
You know it would be that listen you need to one is you must do it correct
A
Avinash Satwalekar8:56
It's an absolute and you'll be surprised at the number of people that don't do it right so one is you have to do it there's no ifs or buts around it and I think the other misperception people have is that I need a decent amount of money to start investing
I
Interviewer9:14
I need to get corpus that you don't need. You need to get started and build a corpus.
A
Avinash Satwalekar9:20
You can do something as small as
I
Interviewer9:22
Small as 500 500 oh 500
A
Avinash Satwalekar9:24
500,000 rupees you can start. So we actually even have something called a 100 rupee daily sit which was created for the vendors because they can't do a monthly SIP. So they're like okay a month is 30 days is very far I'm living day today but if I've got an extra 100 bucks 200 bucks that I've earned today that I can put in I don't have an avenue to do that
I
Interviewer9:50
And the power of compounding that famous story about that chess pod right I mean which never goes out of my mind saying that you know the king saying that okay what do you want and he says a grain of rice for everything but you double it every time and he was laughing saying oh you want just so little but that is the true power of compounding that people don't realize Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that's see that's human nature. Correct. We undervalue the long term. Absolutely.
A
Avinash Satwalekar10:16
And we overvalue the short term. I mean the biggest challenge with any investments is our behavior. It is our behavior that separates a good investor from a bad investor and returns wise. Right? And what do I mean by that? Right? So when you start to panic, when you start to have an emotional reaction to a financial decision or you take a financial decision based on emotion, those are nine out of 10 wrong. Finance decisions should never be taken with emotions so SIP is the perfect tool, right? There is no emotion every month.
I
Interviewer11:01
It's just happening for consistency. Consistency.
A
Avinash Satwalekar11:04
What happens is when you let emotions come in, you then go and what would you do? You stop your SI.
I
Interviewer11:10
Correct. True.
A
Avinash Satwalekar11:11
You reduce it. You do this, you do that. You muck around that because it's emotions that are a big hammer. So my thing to investors or young investors is to say you know start early stay invested and most importantly and this is for all investors actually is to say that you want to actually start with what your goal is right so when you think about like I mean that was one of the things we found in the drive right I was expecting we like a variety of different goals women have different and women are actually incredible at being goal oriented which is what makes them phenomenal investors.
I
Interviewer11:51
Absolutely right. I mean there's actual scientific evidence and studies that have proven that women investors are better than men. If you ever had to write a book about this drive what would you call it and what would be your quote on it?
A
Avinash Satwalekar12:05
I think change the so is so because also because I think it is universal. It is not that we were trying to change women's thinking. We're actually trying to change men's thinking. You want to change that thinking and thinking doesn't change overnight, right? It is going to take time and it's going to take sometimes. It takes generations. No, but that's fantastic. I mean, thank you so much.
I
Interviewer12:31
Thanks for driving me around. I mean, I've never had a better you know and I can't even say co-passenger, but you know, I mean the co-driver. I'm just your co-passenger. But thank you for letting me know about your thought and everything in terms of what happened on this fabulous journey. I wish you many more.
A
Avinash Satwalekar12:50
Thank you very much. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I
Interviewer12:53
Thank you. And I time for an espresso. Yes. Yes. Exactly.
N
Narrator12:57
Mutual fund investments are subject to market rests. Read all scheme related documents carefully.